


Against Paradise

by LeilaKalomi



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Pon Farr, Slow Burn, T'hy'la
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-06-28 03:36:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19803910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeilaKalomi/pseuds/LeilaKalomi
Summary: When Spock realizes that Kirk has had relationships with men in the past, he’s forced to confront the feelings he harbors for his captain and friend.And what will Kirk’s own feelings mean, when met with Vulcan philosophy?Kirk and Spock explore their feelings for each other (mostly by trying to repress or deny them) during the events of TOS and slightly beyond. This is my take on TOS from a K/S POV.This is a long-term project that updates when I can get to it. It’s not abandoned, just not on a schedule!





	1. Mercy

Spock paces the observation deck during delta shift and attempts to assess his own conduct. It has been four months, three weeks, two days, and approximately five hours since the start of their current mission aboard the USS _Enterprise_. Gary Mitchell’s death has taken a toll on the captain, and the last few weeks had been quiet until McCoy, the new doctor, had come aboard. Perhaps it is easier to dwell on a general dislike of McCoy than to consider why Spock does not wish to linger too long on thoughts of his friend, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter. Lately it seems that Jim Kirk is all he can think of. And it is, after all, one of the reasons he is having so much trouble adjusting to McCoy.

McCoy was a friend of Kirk before, had known him even before Kirk and Spock first met in passing all those years ago aboard the _Potemkin_ —and now Spock finds that he has a new emotion to work against. Jealousy. He had assumed that it was only because he didn’t like Kirk’s attention diverted from him. Of course the Captain had social obligations—he was what humans referred to as a charismatic man, Spock understood all of that. And Spock is understanding of his need to spend time with women. It has always seemed to Spock that it is a quality of the human male to bask in as much female attention as possible, and Spock could not expect the captain to deny his blessing of being uniquely placed to attract a great deal of that sort of attention. But after the incident, after being infected himself, he remembers all too well what he’d said to the Captain, the truth of it lingering even once the terrible loss of control had ended. He was ashamed, the feelings for his Captain stronger than he would have thought possible, stronger, regardless of what he had said, than friendship. Even a Vulcan could acknowledge a friend. So what was it that he could not allow himself? Perhaps it was only that he had had so few friends before. But he knew that was not it. With his emotions forced to the surface, he could see even more clearly that the way the Doctor irritated him was not only due to his flagrant human emotions, nor to the way he denigrated Spock’s most hard-earned characteristics, but the way he always seemed to imply…well, it was unclear exactly what.

“Spock, I know what you’re doing,” he’d said, one day on the bridge, when Kirk had left him in command. This was after a week of joining the two of them for lunch, of raised eyebrows whenever one of them seemed comfortable in the presence of the other, and it had become hard, already, at this point, to sacrifice that ease.

“Really, Doctor?” he had asked.

But the Doctor had not elaborated.

***

Kirk, though, lately seems to approach Spock with a kind of studied, calibrated gentleness that Spock cannot understand. It is different than his initial, bluff approach to Spock, and it is genuine, he is sure of that, has found a glimpse of Kirk’s mind in the moments the Captain has brushed against him, unthinkingly pressing their hands together, a slip against his skin as he grasps an arm, or holding both of his wrists as they wrestle together in a workout. No, Kirk seems to almost glow, a kind of beckoning golden sheen over his mind that seems, without his being able to articulate exactly how he knows it, a response to him, in some way. It is thrilling, though it probably mirrors his responses to the rest of the world. Kirk is capable of such wonder. But then, it is also appealing because it is so unlike the bond he shares with T’Pring, whose mind feels cloaked in a smoky haze, also a sign of her response to him. In some ways, he knows, it is only that he is not used to the kind of solicitous kindness Kirk offers, but in other ways…

In other ways, it is confusing. If McCoy knows what he, Spock, is doing, or thinks he does, he wonders what McCoy knows—or thinks—of Kirk’s motivations. He seeks the doctor out one day when the bulk of the crew has taken shore leave to see a play. The doctor is in sick bay, one patient with minor phaser burns, and once he’s run the dermal regenerator, he turns to Spock.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Spock?” he asks.

Spock raises his eyebrows.

“I merely thought you might care to have lunch, Doctor, as it is your usual time and the Captain is not available.”

“Well, look at that. You can be thoughtful.”

Spock inclines his head. “You usually eat at approximately twelve hundred hours, do you not?”

The Doctor sets his padd on his desk, and they set off.

***

“To what do I owe the honor?” Doctor McCoy says, shoveling a forkful of beans into his mouth.

“I merely thought the two of us should become better acquainted.”

Doctor McCoy eats more of his pinto beans. He looks around.

“It’s a shame there’s no one around to hear this,” he says. “And no one’ll believe me.”

“Humor, Doctor?”

  
“Well, it loses something in explanation, Spock,” McCoy says. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I do not require sustenance, Doctor.”

“Just wanted my company, did you?”

Spock inclines his head.

“Did you already meet with Leighton?” McCoy asks.

“The Captain did not require my assistance,” Spock says. McCoy frowns. “Indeed,” Spock says. “The Captain and I thought it odd as well. My absence is per Mr. Leighton’s request to speak with the Captain alone.”

“What I’m most surprised about is that you allowed it.”

“I am second in command, doctor,” Spock says, confused.

McCoy laughs. “Sure you are, Spock,” he says. “And that’s all.”

When Kirk is back on the ship, he seems fidgety, distant. Eventually, he mentions that Leighton had not wanted to share a scientific discovery with him, but to investigate the lead actor for something...it’s not clear what. Kirk does not explain, and Spock only learns that much by seeing what Kirk was doing on the computer before he entered. Karidian. Kodos. Kodos of Tarsus IV? What is Kirk doing?

He is still more confused when Lenore Karidian, the daughter of the actor and apparently an actor in her own right, boards the _Enterprise_. But when he asks Kirk about it, he both pulls rank and and demands that Spock stay out of it. Spock returns to sickbay to talk to the doctor.

“It was illogical of him to bring those players aboard,” he says.

“Did it ever occur to you that he might simply like the girl?” McCoy says. And there’s something satisfied about the way he says it, something about the way the words sit when they land in Spock’s mind that isn’t right.

“It occurred; I dismissed it,” he says.

“You would,” McCoy scoffs.

What did he mean by that? Spock wonders. Of course he would dismiss it—it’s an illogical conclusion. But if McCoy can see that, then he, too, should dismiss it. So that can’t be what the man meant. But trying to follow McCoy’s thinking would drive any Vulcan to his wits’ end, so Spock dismisses that, too. McCoy, he can see, will be no help here. He turns to his computer. And when he finds what he’s looking for, he’s filled with a rage so deep he has to meditate for an hour before he can act. Karidian is Kodos, and James Kirk, Spock’s Captain and friend, was on Tarsus IV during the infamous famine.

He wants to go to Kirk, to comfort him, but he does not know how. Instead, he arms himself with as much information as he can, as much logic as he can. They will take down Karidian together, and Kirk will be affirmed, restored. There can be no pain too great for Karidian, who made his friend suffer when he was vulnerable, who is even now, responsible for his suffering, for this wedge between them.

***

When Karidian is done, gone, and the girl, Lenore, has been unmasked, Spock looks for Kirk and finds him standing in the officers’ recreation weight room during delta shift.

“Captain,” he says.

“Spock,” Kirk says. “Join me.”

He does. They exercise in silence, then walk back to their quarters together. Spock debates whether he should invite the Captain inside, but opts instead to let the Captain take the lead, and at the door, he nods at Spock, thanks him, his arm reaching out slightly and curving around Spock’s for just a second, as if he meant to grasp him but thought better of it. It would have been all right, he thought, if this man, and this man alone had embraced him. He would not have minded being engulfed by his body, his mind, his thoughts—it’s only right that he should feel as Jim does, take his suffering inside of him so that Jim does not bear it alone.

“Good night, Spock,” the captain says.

“Good night, Captain.”

“Jim.” The Captain smiles at him, but he still looks sad. Spock wants to touch his face, to learn its lines by feel. But of course the Captain does not want that—he is grieving his lost Lenore, the girl who never was as he’d believed.

“Are you all right, Captain?”

“Spock,” he says. “I’m fine. I’m—I’m sorry for earlier.”

“That is quite all right, Captain.”

“I’m so used to you,” the Captain says. “I wonder if…”

Spock waits, the Captain seems to want him to say something, but he cannot. Used to him? What does this mean?

“Something Lenore said to me. She said I’m like my ship, that I’m powerful but lack mercy. Lack _humanity_. I’ve just been...thinking about it.”

“It is natural, if somewhat illogical, that the last words she spoke to you at such a moment would have an impact.”

“But—”

“I do not believe her assessment to be an accurate one.”

“No, but you wouldn’t. That’s what I mean. I get so...used to you, Spock. And you’re not human. You’re Vulcan. Sometimes I forget about that. Sometimes I wonder if I...If I’m losing a part of myself.” There it is again: “You wouldn’t.” And here he doesn’t know what it means either, but it never feels like a compliment. Jim hasn’t meant to insult him; he can tell that, but this feels like he’s blaming him for something, for not being human, and then there’s the way that Jim is looking at him—like he’s pleading, begging for something. The expression makes Spock’s skin tingle, makes the air seem thick, charged, hard to breathe. But what is it Jim wants? Reassurance, perhaps?

“A starship captain must be powerful, like his ship, but I have never known you to lack mercy, Captain.”

Kirk stares.

“And I have never seen humanity more clearly distilled and embodied than in you, Jim” he adds, his voice barely above a whisper. Kirk’s eyes plunder his face until he has to look away, open his door, shut it behind him.

“Spock—” he hears his captain call out, but he cannot move, cannot go back now, cannot parse what has happened, only knows that he must master his fear, his—whatever this feeling is that is causing him to shake, causing him to say things that cause such emotions in others, that must carry more emotion than he should permit himself to feel. It is not right, not fitting, that he should engage others this way, stir up in them emotions he cannot feel, or allow. Not the captain, surely. Not his friend. Angry at himself and ashamed, he removes his clothes and steps into the sonic shower to cleanse himself of it all.

***

He does not seek out the Captain. He wants to, badly. He does not understand what the Captain meant when he said he felt that he was losing a part of himself. Because of Spock? It seemed that that had been the implication. But whatever it was, he had so craved, even in the moment it happened, the way the Captain was looking at him when he said it, the pleading, the wonder. Almost as if, even as Jim expressed a kind of grief, he had wanted to lose himself. But Spock did not want to force this on him, had found himself wondering if Jim had detected the occasional slippage of his shields when they were together, as Spock found himself craving his friend’s mental energy, the bright golden shimmer that overlaid Jim when they were together, if it had perhaps affected his friend in some way. The truth was, he didn’t know if it was dangerous—if _he_ was dangerous. Growing up, they had said that he was, that he possessed the strength of a Vulcan, the Vulcan natural temperament, without the full Vulcan capacity for discipline. Then on Earth, he had horrified the humans with his strength and his “coldness,” what they called his utilitarian way of thinking—what they had called on Vulcan logic, the only salvation of the Vulcan mind. It was difficult to know what was best, difficult not to think that perhaps the easiest and best solution was for Spock simply not to exist. But he did exist, and so, that was not a solution at all.

Kirk comes to him when it is time for their chess match; he looks hopeful, almost sad, as if he expects Spock to turn him away, but Spock does not, cannot. He has never imagined what it would be like to have to disappoint this man, to deny him something, and so they play chess, they talk. The captain’s radiant energy fills his quarters, but it seems that there is something else he wants to say. And yet, he does not.

It is not until the incident with the Romulans that anything truly changes—the humiliating moment when the Romulan likenesses fill the screen on the bridge and every human face turns to his Vulcan one; the two species—Romulan and Vulcan, as he learns alongside his human compatriots, clearly offshoots of one another. And of course, they do not understand. Or perhaps, for them, logic is not enough, and he is implicated by his appearance, the same way, as a child, he had been implicated by his blood whenever anyone at school discussed humans and all the children would turn to regard him. But this, though his childhood has prepared him for it somewhat, is worse. He would rather be associated with humans on Vulcan than implicated in the crimes of one of their oldest enemies while serving on a ship full of them.

Of course, the problem is primarily Lieutenant Stiles. But Spock would be a fool to think that simply because no one else expresses their mistrust, they do not feel it. Stiles at least, can be dealt with because he can be identified. And once Spock saves his life, he recants, openly, loudly—almost boastfully, as if he is proud to have been wrong, or perhaps only proud to have recognized it. Kirk, of course, has stood by him the whole time, has insisted that the others remove any thoughts of bigotry from their minds. And Spock does not deny that Kirk’s words were a balm, not because they were uttered but because _he_ uttered them, because he has proven something, yet again, that Spock cannot get enough of him proving. He wants to go to him again, wants to resume their meals, during which Spock rarely eats, to resume their strolls on delta shift, but still he thinks of that night, Kirk telling him that he felt lost with Spock, no—felt that he was losing himself _to_ Spock. Was it regret he’d expressed?

But once the incident with the Romulans is behind them, Kirk comes to him during delta shift.

“Chess, Mr. Spock?” he asks.

“It’s not the night for it, Captain.”

“Even so?”

Spock steps back to allow the captain into his quarters, and Kirk seems a little surprised, as if he had expected something else.

“Spock, listen. I’m glad we’re alone.”

Spock raises an eyebrow.

“I said something I’m only now realizing might have been taken as—as something other than it was. I never meant to suggest that I don’t value our friendship. That I’m losing anything by being around you. If I am losing something, I’m glad to see it go. But I think of our moments together as gains. Every one.”

“Captain, I am...”

“You don’t need to respond, Spock. I just—it needed to be said: I want you back, and what else is there to say?” Kirk grins, drops into one of the seats at Spock’s table. “So what do you say? Can we get back to normal around here? Or is there something else going on?”

“Nothing, Captain. I—”

“Jim, please, Spock. Sometimes it feels...strange when you call me—”

“I apologize. Jim. I merely wished to respect your space. I had thought...perhaps…” He wants to apologize for the slippage of his barriers, which he thought might have been the cause of Jim’s sense of losing himself, but then he thinks about Jim’s reaction, when he reminds him at this moment, of his alien proclivities, and he pictures Jim’s subtle retraction. Jim had spoken of him, of their friendship as pure gain. Is it wrong that he wants to bask in this moment, this moment of unadulterated positive worth?

“Yes?”

“It is of no consequence. I would enjoy resuming our former...degree of closeness.”

“Good,” Jim says, and he looks at him with wonder, the same way Spock looks at a new planet, the same way Kirk looks at space itself. He nearly smiles, can feel the edges of his mouth lifting involuntarily under Kirk’s gaze. And he feels it, the sense of wonder, of losing himself, of being engulfed, and for just a moment he thinks—was this what Kirk had meant—could Kirk possibly feel like this? He wants to lower his shields, to touch him, to experience it for himself and know, but Kirk would not understand his touch: it would be wrong. If Kirk...no. Kirk could not feel this for him. He knows this feeling, what it means, what it leads to. He is a man, and a Vulcan. Kirk has demonstrated that he enjoys women—their company and their attention, and Spock has never known him to pay that kind of attention to a man. And even were he to pursue a dalliance with a man, Spock could not be that man. He is a Vulcan, and Kirk is his commanding officer and his friend. He has a bondmate waiting for him lightyears away, whenever his Time arrives. How can he think so illogically? He will spend the night in mediation, he decides; he will get himself in order. For a Vulcan—for Spock—it truly must be all—mind, body, and katra—or nothing. There is no room for experimentation.


	2. Jamie

“Captain.”

Kirk, sitting at his usual table in the recreation room, looks up at his first officer.

“Tonight?” Spock says. He sounds skeptical. “I had not expected to find you here,” he says.

“We had plans,“ Kirk says, letting hurt seep into his voice. It’s more than what he feels. He more than knows why Spock would be surprised to see him ready for their weekly chess game after the day he’s had—a trial for murder, a painful loss. But he likes to watch the man squirm, likes to see him prove that, denial of all emotion aside, he understands feeling, and though Kirk doesn’t acknowledge it, even to himself, he likes to see Spock prove that he cares for him.

“Of course,” Spock says. “But I am, nevertheless, at a loss.”

“Yet you came anyway,” Kirk says. Spock doesn't say anything; he inclines his head and Kirk understands: touche.

“Blindsided?" he says. "As am I, Mister.”

The eyebrow lifts and Kirk smiles, satisfied. “Are you going to sit down and join me?”

Spock sits. “My apologies,” he says. “What I meant to ask was—are you sufficiently recovered for a proper match?”

Kirk winks at him; Spock pretends not to see, but Kirk catches the way his gaze snags, and something else—the way the chest piece shakes in his hand just barely a quiver. He blinks back surprise now and a little bit of guilt.

“Spock.” He says “I am recovered. But I do want to thank you for what you said in there today. I do want to tell you that I had no idea how high I stood in your regard.”

“Surely, captain, you know that I…value our friendship.”

“But this is beyond—” Kirk starts, stops. It won’t do to prod too deeply and break what he—or rather the testimony—has unearthed.

“To say I’m not capable of malice or panic…That’s more credit that I’d give any of my  _ friends _ . Except you, perhaps.” Spock raises an eyebrow. “Except you,” Kirk repeats. “I’m honored, Mr. Spock. But it’s not accurate. I am capable of it.”

“Perhaps,” Spock says. “But I do not believe so.”

“Based on your logic. But humans—”

“Are seldom logical. Yes. You and the doctor have seen to it that I understand that well enough by now. Even so, Captain, I have observed you well enough to understand your character. And there is no room for the kind of act you were accused of. Captain...Jim, I confess I found it  _ difficult _ to hear such proceedings against you.”

Kirk smiles. He likes this, the way the man makes him feel protected, as if he’s erected stone walls around himself and Kirk, with no one else allowed inside.

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” he says. He’s not sure he deserves this regard; he had not been so quick to trust when the stakes were reversed and it was Spock under court martial, had not so easily shaken off Spock’s decision not to take him into confidence—particularly as concerned his former Captain—though he understood Spock’s reason for it. He suddenly feels the need to truly be alone with this man, this friend who has a higher capacity for feeling that Kirk had thought possible among humans, much less for a Vulcan. He takes in the rigid bearing, the stony expression that had so fooled him when they had first met. He looks around—only a few ensigns in yellow shirts flirting with two burly off-duty yeomen.

“Let’s have our game in my quarters,” he says. He reaches to tap Spock’s hand, but Spock stands abruptly, pulling his hand to his side at the moment he makes contact. Kirk pushes down a feeling of hurt, a feeling that makes no sense.

“We can just—” he shrugs, unable to explain the need for a quiet that includes his friend. But Spock nods, “Indeed,” he says, and he seems pleased enough. He never seems to mind being alone with Kirk, even as he never seems to want anyone else’s company for its own sake. It’s another thing that makes Kirk feel special, though McCoy says, “You’re his commanding officer; he’s nothing if not logical. And he’s an ambitious man.” Kirk had disagreed with him, has never seen a trace of true ambition in Spock. Spock’s accomplishments were all motivated by curiosity, carried through with a strong capacity to work, and they stand for themselves. He’s not motivated by recognition; he’s just talented and driven, and that’s something that leads to the kind of results people notice.

***

By the time they arrive in his quarters, Kirk has put McCoy and the question of Spock’s ambition out of his mind. He waves Spock into a seat as he sits down in the chair nearest his bunk and removes his boots and tunic, then sighs with relief. Spock adjusts the chess pieces, returning the Captain’s set to its starting position after their last match. Kirk watches him, still in his dress uniform. He stretches a little, aware of his body under his form-fitting black undershirt as Spock’s gaze shifts to him. 

“Most illogical,” Spock says, raising his eyebrow.

Kirk grins. “You should try it,” he says.

“Captain, I had wanted to ask.”

“Yes?”

“About Lieutenant Commander Finney. I understood that his actions against you were motivated by a sense of...personal retribution?”

“You want to hear about Finney,” Kirk says.

“If you do not find the subject too distasteful. I confess...I am curious.”

“You want to know how I could have offended him so badly.”

“With all due respect, it seemed that the account you gave could not have been complete.”

Kirk grins. “And yet I still have your full confidence.”

“I know your character. And I know something now of Mr. Finney’s. It is simple enough to see where any blame lies, were I interested in apportioning it. But as for my confidence, Captain, always.”

“Sure,” Kirk says. “Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Spock.” He catches himself—he’s leaning across the table, searching the face for any signs that the mask might crack, for any signs that Spock is more receptive than he’s letting on to the signals Kirk lately can’t seem to stop himself from giving. He sighs, reining himself in. It’s necessary, he tells himself. This isn’t what Spock is asking for, it’s just what he, himself, wants, what he, himself, can’t seem to put out of his head lately. The idea of telling Spock about Finney—well, it could be just what he needs to snap himself out of it. There’s no way to tell this story and flirt at the same time. No way to use it to cast himself in a good light. And so, he leans back in his chair, and begins.

***

Ben Finney had been Kirk’s tactics in structor when he was a midshipman, about to graduate from the academy. Finney had been impressed with his work the whole year, and one night, toward the end of the term, Kirk had seen him out at the Andorian fast food restaurant. On impulse, he’d slid into the seat across from him and gestured to the padd in front of the Lieutenant as he took a sip of his cabbage soup. “Grading?”

“Yeah, what else?” Finney had said, and laughed. The look in his eyes had been warm, inviting, something Kirk hadn’t seen in class, and the Lieutenant didn’t seem shocked to see him, didn’t seem at all put off by running into a student outside of class. So he stayed. They started eating lunch together, Kirk running battle strategy ideas past Finney as they ate, Kirk’s friends and sometimes Finney’s occasionally joining them. When the class ended, the lunches continued, turned into invitations to the bar at night, to Finney’s recommendations of Kirk to special assignments. Kirk would have called Ben Finney his best friend. Then, one night, after a party in honor of Kirk’s graduation and promotion to Ensign, it changed. They were at Kirk’s tiny apartment, the rest of the attendees had gone home, and they sat back on Kirk’s couch, trying to pound back the last of the Andorran wine. Ben put his hand on Kirk’s knee, and Kirk looked at him, and Ben was moving closer, and Kirk wasn’t stopping him. It was fun. But that’s all it was. Ben was a friend, and they had fun together that night. And a few other nights. They never talked much about it, and Kirk was young, hadn’t seen why they needed to. He knew that Ben was engaged; he’d told him, and admittedly, engagement didn’t feel like a real thing to Kirk—he was still so young, and he’d never met Ben’s intended—but he knew what it meant more broadly, and Ben had spoken of his future wife with so much love.

Not long afterwards, Kirk accepted his first posting as an ensign aboard the Farragut. He packed up his possessions—he’d never had much—and set off. The mission ended, and he accepted another posting, this time as Lieutenant, aboard the Republic. He hadn’t realized, until he was already onboard and saw the watch duty roster, that Ben Finney was also part of the crew. But Ben sought him out. They resumed something of their easy friendship, the two of them working out together, eating together, discussing tactics or engineering puzzles. Ben had married since they’d known each other, had had a daughter. Kirk had met them both before the ship departed, a pretty woman, who seemed a little too serious for Finney, and a cute little three-year-old named Jamie. He hadn’t thought anything of it. Until the night Ben confessed that he’d named her that after Kirk. Kirk froze on hearing that, not knowing how to take it.

“What’s wrong?” Ben said. “Does that bother you?”

Kirk shook his head. “Just— I didn’t think it— I mean, I never heard from you. I didn’t...I didn’t know.”

“And if you  _ had _ known?” There was something odd about the way he was talking that made Kirk nervous.

“Known what?” he said. “About your naming your daughter after me?”

“How I felt about you,” Ben said. “I think that’s what you meant. Well, I loved you, Jim. You mean you really didn’t know?”

“I thought we were just having fun.”

Ben reached out, put his hand on Kirk’s, and Kirk gripped it a moment, then let go.

“That’s what it was to me,” Kirk said, carefully.

“And now?”

“And now? You’re  _ married _ , Ben. You’ve got a daughter.”

“A daughter named after you.” Ben’s voice was practically a whisper. He took Kirk’s hand again and leaned forward, his forehead against Kirk’s. Kirk blinked, then stood up, dislodging him.

“Look, Ben,” he said. “I think I’ve made myself clear.”

Ben got to his feet. “Please, Jim,” he said.

“I’m sorry.”

“How do you think you got this posting?” Ben said. “And your latest promotion?” And his tone was totally different, entitled and sneering.

“I think I earned it,” Kirk snapped, frowning more out of confusion than anything else.

“With my recommendation.”

“Right. A posting on your word alone?” Kirk was angry now. “I thank you for all you’ve done for me, Ben. And I’m grateful for your friendship and the good times we’ve had together. But that’s all.”

“You’re damn right, mister. That’s all,” Finney said. And he stormed out, the doors sliding closed behind him.

Kirk didn’t really know what to do then. Fortunately, Finney didn’t directly oversee anything he worked on. They avoided each other a few weeks; it was fine—they moved in separate circles since Finney was senior to him, even though after Kirk’s latest promotion to Lieutenant Commander, he no longer outranked him, and Kirk had his pick of workout partners and dinner companions. It might have been the latter that triggered it. After a particularly busy week with two different women, the new duty rosters went out Sunday evening and Kirk saw that for the next week, he’d be relieving Ben on watch duty every night. He steeled himself. They were both mature, professional officers. Of course he could handle this. It might be awkward, but they could get the job done. He arrived that night in that spirit.

“Hello, Ben,” he said.

“Yeah,” Finney said, stalking off. He didn’t look at Kirk, didn’t ask him if he had any questions, or offer any status updates. The pattern repeated itself for the next three nights. Then, on the fourth, Kirk noticed that the doors to the circuit breakers were slightly open. He went to close it, then decided to check that everything was in order before he did, and saw that one of the circuits was open. It could have only happened deliberately, he realized. Finney, trying to cause an incident, one that would be blamed on him as the man on duty, and would have destroyed the entire USS Republic. He closed the circuit and logged the incident immediately, leaving out the details, logging only the facts: that a circuit had been left open by the last duty officer. But even for that, Finney was pulled from watch duty, reprimanded, and a few weeks later transferred off the ship.

***

“I didn’t hear anything of Finney again until the last few months, when he transferred to the  _ Enterprise _ as records officer,” Kirk says, now. “I wasn’t happy about it, but I never dreamed he’d still be so angry.”

Spock nods.

“He’s ruined his career now,” he adds. “After all this time, still trying to get back at me, for…”

“Indeed,” Spock says. “I thank you for the information, Captain. You have confirmed my initial belief: you did nothing wrong.”

Spock is studying him openly, as if he still has more to learn.

“What is it, Mr. Spock?”

“Merely that I had not…” Spock pauses. “You seem to inspire a great depth of feeling, Captain, in all who know you.”

Kirk’s breath catches in his throat, and he tries to downplay it, tries to smile his usual teasing smile. “Even you?” he says, struggling to sound playful, rather than as if his very life depended on Spock’s answer.  _ And, of course, _ he reminds himself,  _ it doesn’t _ . He tries not to lean in when Spock takes his time to answer. But the Vulcan’s eyes are already soft, indulgent.

“I confess I am often overcome with your dynamism,” Spock says, and Kirk’s heart soars. 

“Overcome?” he says, unable to resist teasing.

“It is a mental state, captain,” he adds, lifting his eyebrow.

“Oh, of course,” Kirk says. But he’s still smiling, he can’t stop himself. He wonders what Spock would do if he prodded, or if he just leaned over and took his hand— _ my god, he has such beautiful hands _ —maybe lifted it to his lips. Shut down, most likely. He’s not sure what Spock feels for him, but he knows the man doesn’t want that. From him or possibly anybody.

Spock lifts a chess piece.

“Shall I play white?” he asks.

It’s late. Kirk is tired. He knows that Spock is asking him if he wants to play after all, and he doesn’t, not now, but nor does he want Spock to leave. So he nods. Spock begins, and Kirk, tired though he is, succeeds at making the game last as long as possible, keeping Spock with him.

“Checkmate,” Spock says.

“Well, look at that,” Kirk says, sleepily.

“Captain, were it not so apparent that you are in need of repose, I might suspect you of artificially delaying the end of our game.”

“Is it that apparent, Spock? That I need sleep, I mean?”

“Quite.”

“Then why would I drag out the game?” Kirk stands up. He does need sleep.

“I have yet to understand that,” Spock says, studying him. He has not risen from his seat, and for a moment Kirk thinks there’s something else in his gaze.

But then Spock stands, puts his hands behind his back and says, “I confess that I too find myself in need of repose. Good night, Captain.”

“Good night, Spock.” Kirk watches as he goes into the hall to his quarters, rather than through the shared bathroom. He supposes it’s about equidistant either way, but he’s not sure why Spock always prefers the hall. It seems, somehow, like a way of maintaining his distance.

  
  



	3. Dr. Kalomi

They stay like that. The two of them, the easy banter, the closeness. Kirk relishes every moment—the bridge, the meetings, the strategy sessions, the missions, the chess games, the meals that Spock rarely eats. McCoy is different here. Or rather, he’s the same McCoy, but his response to life aboard the _Enterprise_ , life sharing Kirk’s friendship with Spock, has made him even more ornery than usual, and Kirk knows he doesn’t get it, not all the time, though sometimes even that feels willful, as if he doesn’t want to understand, or even wants to _not_ understand. One evening after dinner, Spock takes Gamma shift on the bridge, while Kirk and McCoy retire, and McCoy stops by Kirk’s quarters for a drink. Kirk takes out a bottle of Cetian wine. 

“In honor of our upcoming mission,” he says, holding the bottle up. 

McCoy sighs and sits in Spock’s seat. The seat where guests usually sit, really, but then Kirk usually only has one guest other than McCoy.

Kirk pushes a glass across to McCoy. McCoy stares down into the pale orange liquid before taking a sip.

“You know, whatever happened to good old-fashioned Kentucky bourbon?” he says, grinning. 

Kirk laughs, leaning back in his chair. “Well, nothing that I can recall,” he says. “But I don’t have any of it.”

“You’ve been quiet,” McCoy says. “Finger doing all right?”

“What? Oh.” He’d broken a finger punching a soldier when they’d gone back in time. Spock had seen, had taken his wrist, and he’d felt something, even in that moment of urgency, something more than just his heart speeding up at Spock’s unexpected, rare touch, but something he’d never felt before, as if there were something inside his mind, _seeing_ him, comforting him, the pain entirely dissipated—but it had been only a split second. He’d wanted to ask Spock about it, but he couldn’t, certainly not then when they were focused on the mission but not after, even—it had seemed like talking about it would be...well, it was as unthinkable as telling Spock how he felt. He had almost been sorry when McCoy had fixed it immediately, because Spock would have no reason to touch him again. And of course, Spock hadn’t taken his wrist again to check on him—what was unusual was that he’d done it at all in the first place, and Kirk had been at a loss to explain it to himself, though he’d lost sleep trying.

“My god, Jim,” McCoy says, and Kirk realizes he hasn’t answered him. “Something on your mind?”

“Just—” he sweeps his arm around the room.

“Ah, a Captain’s life,” McCoy says. He drinks deeply from his glass, draining it halfway in one go. “Isn’t it something how this planet can’t sustain human life, but the grapes that grow there make wine better than anything you’ve ever tasted?”

“Ah, I knew you liked it,” Kirk says. 

“Well, there was only a year of it before...well, before production ceased. It’s not easy to come by. I can appreciate that.”

“Spock says it’s ‘most illogical’ that the colonists grew grapes for wine,” Kirk says, “since they knew they had a limited amount of time.” He’s reprimanding himself even before he finishes the sentence. He’d tried not to bring him up. It makes him feel exposed, especially when McCoy starts in on him.

“The hobgoblin would,” he says. “You know, I think _he_ could use some Cetian wine. Or, better still, some good Kentucky bourbon.”

“Still not getting along with my first officer, Bones?”

“Oh, we get along just fine. But I’d sure like him a lot better if he’d loosen up.”

Kirk laughs. He thinks of it, a drunk Spock. Would Spock get drunk with him? No, a terrible idea. If he let that happen, he wouldn’t deserve Spock’s trust. They’re quiet for a while and when Kirk looks up, Bones is staring at him, brow furrowed.

“What I can’t figure out,” McCoy says, setting his glass down, “Is you.”

“Bones?”

“Is it wise, Jim, to spend so much time with him outside of duty?”

“What?” Kirk holds it together, but the question has made him feel almost frantic, he doesn’t know how to answer it because he hadn’t realized the truth of the premise of it—was it too much time? Was it something people were noticing, commenting on—something unusual?

“Now, I don’t have a problem with your green-blooded friend. But he’s a Vulcan. They don’t...think about things like we do. And I’ve seen some of the situations that’s put you in already. You know that this is his second posting on board the Enterprise, and it’s...well, it’s logical for him to want to gain the Captain’s favor. Look, I just think if you need a _friend_ —”

“Spock _is_ my friend, Bones. Just like you. But I don’t like what you’re suggesting.”

“I’m not _suggesting_ anything, Jim. Just saying you might not want to put all your eggs in one basket. There are lots of other senior officers—besides Spock and me—who would welcome the opportunity to spend time with the captain. And they might not relish the idea of him always...”

Kirk holds himself still with anger; he hasn’t been this angry at a friend for years.

“Bones, of all the bigoted—”

“I’m no bigot,” McCoy says. “You know that. But Jim, you have to ask yourself. You’d be a fool not to.”

“I don’t need to ask myself, Bones. I know.”

“Well, all right, then,” McCoy says. “If you know, you know something I don’t.”

“You’re damn right.”

“Well, then. I’ll take your word for it.” Bones lifts his glass, drinks again, draining it.

“Good,” Kirk says. “I won’t hear this again.”

“Fine, Jim. But we don’t all see him the way you do.” McCoy spoke carefully.

“Well, Bones,” Kirk says. “He’s _my_ first officer.”

As they beam down to Omicron Ceti 3, Kirk doesn’t know what to expect. He steels himself for the bodies, disintegrated, perhaps, but instead there’s nothing. Beside him, Spock fiddles with the tricorder. Perhaps if he’d asked him about his readings, he wouldn’t have been so surprised when the three men came around the corner of the barn. Kirk recognized Elias Sandoval even before he introduced himself. What he didn’t see was how this was possible. 

Inside, Elias explained, or rather, evaded explaining. Kirk felt like he might have gone on if a blond woman hadn’t chosen that moment to arrive, to interrupt. He forces a smile when Sandoval introduces her, tamps down his surprise when she says she’s known Spock, when she smiles at him, a coy suggestive smile that makes him want to recoil, seems to embarrass even the woman. Perhaps Spock had rejected her? He searches Spock’s face, studiously blank, though he knows enough to be able to read something like annoyance there. But now he’s feeling irritated, and there’s nothing for it—he’s getting no explanations, no information, not about the odd phenomenon happening here on this planet, or about this unexpected wrinkle in the fabric of the plan. His orders were to evacuate the colony. He was not prepared to have to cajole the colonists into doing so. 

“We have harmony,” Sandoval says. “Complete peace.”

“We’ll try not to interfere with your work,” Kirk says, because wasn’t that the point, anyway, work? Agriculture? Not this odd fanaticism for a return to the old ways? As he leads the men out of the room for a quick conference, he notices that Spock is not at his side. He ignores it, the men assemble, and he has Bones begin examining the colonists while he sends Sulu and the scientists—Spock included—out to examine the planet. Spock splits off immediately from the others, moving away from the settlement as soon as Kirk’s orders are given. He looks after him, wants to go after him, but Sulu and DeSalle have questions, so he goes with them for a while, then sets off, back to the house to check in with Bones, he says, hoping to find Spock on the way and have a word. He takes a large loop, but there’s no sign of him. When he goes back into the house, he’s quiet, and perhaps they don’t know he’s there, but he hears them, the woman, Leila Kalomi, and Sandoval talking. About Spock. 

“Did you love him?” Sandoval asks her.

“If I did, it was important only to myself,” Leila says, dramatically, and Kirk almost sighs with audible relief, instead; he leans against a wall, closing his eyes for a moment. “Mr. Spock’s feelings were not expressed to me,” Leila says. “It is said he has none to give.” Kirk is halfway between wanting to laugh and wanting to explode. He shouldn’t have worried that Spock would have been with this woman, of course not—he should have known better, just as he should know that Spock will never be with him, either. But he still isn’t prepared for the rest of their conversation, for hearing that they somehow plan to keep Spock with them on Omicron Ceti 3. And how, exactly, he wonders, do they plan to do that? He listens a moment longer, wondering if he should recall Spock, keep him close, but they say nothing else of interest. He moves away from the room quietly. _At any rate,_ he thinks, _Spock can take care of himself._

***

Spock is not exactly pleased to see Leila. What he is is...embarrassed. The incident with Leila doesn’t bear discussion. It is not something he wants to revisit even in thought.

And now, here she is, smiling knowingly at him, as if she expects the same in return. Has she learned nothing about him? What does he owe her? he wonders. They had been friends of a kind.

Six years ago, after his first mission had come to an end, he’d been switched from a temporary Starfleet posting on Vulcan to one at Starfleet headquarters on Earth. It had been difficult reacclimating to a primarily human culture, and so many unguarded minds. He’d been on Vulcan since the end of his first mission on the _Enterprise_ with Captain Pike and Number One, and they had both moved on, so he didn’t know anyone on the base, and for the most part, he’d simply done his work—teaching an early morning class, then microbial research for the Fleet—kept up with his physical conditioning, and returned to his base housing in the evenings. It was sufficient for him, but if he were to examine his feelings, acknowledge them, he would have to admit that he was quite lonely. Aside from colleagues and students he encountered during the course of his duties, there was no one to talk with, no sense of companionship or understanding. He spent much of his time in meditation, rarely slept, ate sparingly, practicing discipline above all else to avoid the crush of enforced solitude, the judgment and misunderstanding of his peers. After a while, he noticed that one of the other scientists, Dr. Kalomi, kept her eyes on his longer than strictly necessary when they communicated, that when he spoke to the group, she tried to arrest his gaze with hers, that sometimes, inexplicably, she laughed when he spoke, as if she found him humorous, but, unlike the others, seemed to think that he was “in on the joke.” Once, as she reached to take a pair of calipers from him, she let her fingers wrap around the back of his hand, and he flinched at the shock, pulling away.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. But she was smiling in an odd way, her head tilted. She looked almost satisfied, as if she didn’t actually feel a need to apologize. “Dr. Spock,” she said.

“I am not a doctor,” he replied.

“Right,” she said. “Well, Commander, then.” But she went no further, just stood there looking at him. He began to recognize the signs of human interest, but wished she might get on with it.

“Yes?” he said.

“Commander Spock,” she repeated, inexplicably, displaying a confusing mixture of signs of both shyness and boldness. “I was wondering if you might like to go with me to Acephalous tonight?”

 _Acephalous._ That ridiculous bar just off Academy grounds, packed full of students. But behind Dr. Kalomi, one of the others was watching them with something like fascination and horror, staring and Spock felt a surge of hostility. His lack of emotion did not merit rudeness, and yet that was what he met constantly. He mastered it in a second, but not before it had colored his response. Outwardly, it looked only as if he took a breath, and raised an eyebrow before speaking, before answering her: “I will meet you there at eighteen hundred hours.”

Acephalous was as distasteful as the name would suggest. The place was, as he had expected, packed with students, including one or two of his own, who called out to him as he entered to look for Dr. Kalomi.

“Yo, yo, Commander!” a student called out, laughing, clearly inebriated, their short hair standing out over their round head. Spock ignored them.

“There you are,” Dr. Kalomi said, speaking almost in his ear, doubtless so that it was easier to hear her, but he still found the proximity unnerving.

“Here I am,” he repeated. _Foolish_ , he thought. _I hope the conversation improves beyond belaboring endlessly and inaudibly my location._

“I’m so glad you came.”

“I had communicated that I would arrive at this time.”

She laughed again. He kept his face blank. The conversation had not improved. He was not pleased with his decision, even if she was. She threw her head back, shaking her blond hair, and looked at him over her shoulder. “This way,” she said, again taking his hand, her fingers wrapping around his, inundating his mind with her unguarded giddiness. But he again pulled away. Was it possible she did not understand the significance of the touching of hands, fingers, for Vulcans, even as a biologist? Or was she merely so selfish that she would inflict this on him? 

Dr. Kalomi led him up a flight of stairs, where it was quieter, to a room where people were doing less screaming and imbibing of alcoholic beverages and more talking and eating. They took a table in the back, toward the corner, and near a window. It was quieter here; no one was stumbling; he saw none of his students, even noticed a few admirals sitting together in a corner table like theirs.

She watched him looking. “Better?” she said. “I could tell you didn’t like it down there.”

“It is not a question of liking or disliking, Dr. Kalomi,” he said.

“Oh, of course,” she said, flustered. “Um, please, would you call me Leila?”

“Leila,” he repeated.

She smiled, reached across the table and planted her hand over his, this time on the back of it, and only for a moment, and he did not flinch. “Oh, I’m so glad you came.”

***

Spock and Leila spent time together after that about once a week, usually at Acephalous, but sometimes at base or on the Academy grounds, where she was a research fellow and taught a class. The gardens there were fragrant during the spring and she liked to walk with him, pointing out her favorite blooms. As the other scientists on their team realized that they knew each other outside of work, that they spent time together, they were met with confusion, and eventually, Spock found, they seemed to accept him more, regarding him less as a curiosity than simply as a colleague. Sometimes they ate lunches together, though more often Spock preferred to simply work when he was in the lab, and he typically eschewed “breaks” in work, though he realized it was a human predilection, and Leila, who seemed happy with their friendship, which he’d come to accept as useful to himself, deserved some acquiescence.

This was not to imply that he did not _like_ her well enough, but he knew that it was not acceptable to base decisions on an emotion. Leila treated him with respect, she was kind and intelligent, and associating with her had its benefits: thus she was a good companion.

Everything he did not understand, though, became apparent after a while. Obviously, at first he had thought she was attracted to him. She had displayed all of the signs of a human attempting courtship. But eventually, she seemed to realize that he did not return her overtures in that direction, and they settled, from Spock’s perspective, into something enjoyable that hovered between friends and colleagues. But one summer evening, as they walked in the Academy gardens after dinner at Acephalous, Leila took his hand, surprising him, as he had explained to her that the hand were significant to Vulcans. She looked at him as she did it, so he knew that it was deliberate, and this stopped him from beginning to explain again; there was no mistake—she had not forgotten. She opened his hand, separating his two fingers, and he realized what she meant to do, and pulled away.

“Leila—”

She laughed, though he could see she was sad. “What about a kiss then?” she said. “The human way? Oh, Spock. I know you feel—why don’t you let me show you how I do?” Spock stilled then. The night seemed to have stopped, the air humid and perfumed.

“Is that necessary?” he said, trying to think himself through this.

“To me,” she said, a kind of whining, pleading in her voice that made him want to cringe. The air was too sweet, too thick; it was hard to breathe it in.

“And what of my needs?”

“Do you have them?” Her hand found his again, she dragged her thumb across his fingers.

“I have the same needs as any being, for survival. However, mentally, my needs are much different than yours.”

“We can work that out,” she said. “Mr. Spock, please.”

He studied her; he had never seen a human like this before, and it frightened him. She shook, her eyes wet, she looked at him with a kind of hunger, a kind of fear, as if he had the power to destroy her, but of course she did not think he would hurt her, not after all of this. He thought of T’Pring, the two of them in tutoring together, the way he had hoped their association would lift him up. It was the closest thing he could recall from his own experience, and he could see that this whole association with Leila was not unlike his naive childhood attempt at a friendship with T’Pring, the friendship that had led him to choose her from the girls his father had considered for his betrothal.

“I am sorry,” he said.

“But what about your emotional needs? Surely you must—”

“I am Vulcan,” he said. “You are aware of our ways. We do not _feel_.”

“But I know you.”

“Irrelevant,” he said. But that wasn’t right—what he meant was that if she knew him, she should have known that. What he meant was that he was blindsided, that he wondered what he had done wrong to give this woman the idea that he could meet her “emotional needs,” that he might even share them. He tried again. “If that is true, then you should know that I am not like you.” 

“No,” she said. “But that doesn’t matter to me.”

“Perhaps it should. I cannot compare our emotions, for I have none. And, no doubt, that would make the pairing you suggest both unsuitable and illogical.”

“Oh, Spock…” Leila sounded disappointed, the kind of disappointment that parents feel for their children, as if she pitied him.

He glanced around the deserted garden. “I thank you for a pleasant dinner,” he said. “I will see you in the laboratory on Monday.”

Leila’s face crumpled, he saw her as he stepped past her, sinking down onto a stone bench, resting her hands on her knees. He knew that she would cry, that it would be because of him. But there was nothing for it.

***

And now, she stands here, looking at him, hopefully, when six years ago, after that night, she had never really looked at him again. She had given notice of transfer the next Monday at work, had been moved to an experimental-garden planning group, then when they’d needed agricultural volunteers for several space colonies, she had signed up. He had heard that she had been selected, but not which planet she was destined for. Well, that question, which had not occupied much of his thinking, is answered now. He can feel the Captain’s eyes on him, wanting an explanation. Or perhaps simply sensing his discomfort. He hurries the conversation along, returns the focus to the mission at hand, but does not ask him anything. Leila, though she seemed hesitant when she’d acknowledged him, now lingers as the others leave the room, so he does, too, thinking perhaps he owes her at least the courtesy of allowing her to address him. But she, like the captain, says nothing. Spock grips his tricorder and steps outside to begin readings.

He is analysing one of the crop fields when he detects her presence, she’s standing there by the edge of the field, the wind lifting her hair slightly around her shoulders. He remarks on their survival of the Berthold rays, the curious total lack of fauna, but she does not explain. Instead, she steps too close and places her hand on her chest, offering him some pabulum about how he has a place inside where no one can come. Logically, of course that must be true, in more than one sense. Doubtless, she herself has an inner life of sorts. He resists explaining this, knows that she will consider that it belies the point. He is a Vulcan, and she has never understood this, so he does not dispute her assertion that she did not understand him in the past, though he is certain that this lack of understanding persists. He pulls away from her. 

“I would like to know how your people have managed to survive here,” he says.

“I missed you,” she says.

“Logically, you should all be dead,” he says. And he takes a certain relish in saying it.

She says she will tell him, or rather, conditionally hedges the offer on his making an attempt to understand their feelings. About each other, she says. What can she be speaking of? He reminds her that he is not emotional, that his interest in the planet is scientific. But she shakes her head, as if she thinks he is being coy. 

“Someone else might believe that,” she says. “Your shipmates, your captain, but not me.”

Spock feels a stab of annoyance. What does she know about his Captain? And how dare she speak of him, of what Kirk believes of him? And why should the notion of Kirk—of Kirk specifically—accepting that he is emotionless strike him as so offensive, so...ludicrous, even? But then, the friendship is out of hand, has been for too long, and he knows that. Before he can dismiss the thought, the preoccupation, he’s stepping over the crops, following her across the field. She holds out a hand, but he finds it difficult to believe that she would truly expect him to take it. Perhaps she means, instead, to prove a point.

It is a long walk she leads him on, the land they move through largely undeveloped, which he finds unusual for an agricultural colony, but Dr. Kalomi refuses to answer any of his questions. She stops them in front of an unusual specimen of flora, much like some he has seen by the barn. And then, suddenly, one of them—discharges, explodes, hitting him in the face. They burn his skin, his eyes, his nasal passages, and then, as that dissipates, he is suddenly overwhelmed, his brain fire, his mind racing, the Captain, the captain, Jim, the pain of loving him, of his own isolation, of never being understood, then finding this man, his captain, who looks at him, as if… as if… but that can’t be. He can’t give himself over to that. And she is still talking. _Why_ is she still talking? Can he not have even the comfort of silence?

Then, suddenly, as suddenly as it started, it’s gone. The air feels cool and delightful on his skin. The sun is warm, the grass soft beneath his feet. And he’s with his friend from Earth, Leila, who had always been so sweet and intelligent. He treated her badly, he can see that now. And when he looks up, she puts a hand on his face, and he looks at her, hears her words, kind as he had known they would be, as she always is, and she is so beautiful, the look in her lovely eyes so kind. What was it she had wanted—a kiss? The thought thrills through him.

“I love you,” he says, wonderingly, and the feeling thrums through him, powerful and inclusive. This must be what she meant about how they feel about each other. “I can love you.” And he does not think any more, but knows that all is well, and he kisses her.

***

Kirk spends nearly an hour trying to convince Sandoval to help evacuate the colony, but Sandoval will not listen, will not even agree to inform the other colonists of the need to leave. But nor will he explain how the colonists have survived, why it is that he does not believe they need to evacuate. After Sandoval has abandoned them, refusing to engage further. He looks around, doesn’t see any of his crewmen. It’s been a long time, and he wonders where they could have gotten to. Sulu shows up with another crewman—not DeSalle, unfortunately, but he’ll worry about that later. He gives them orders to beam down landing parties, start rounding up the colonists.

Still no Spock. He opens his communicator and radios him. It takes a moment for him to pick up, longer than usual, and Kirk tenses, thinking of the earlier conversation he’d overheard. Is there danger?

But then his signal is answered.

“Yes, what did you want,” comes a lazy voice, the timber of which is familiar, though the tone is not.

“Spock, is that you?” Kirk says, alarmed.

“Yes, Captain, what did you want?” he repeats. Kirk’s stomach clenches.

“Where are you?” he says.

“I don’t believe I want to tell you.”

He demands that Spock report to him, but Spock does not acknowledge.

He needs to sort through his thoughts. Obviously, he has to evacuate the colony. Surely, Spock will be found during that process, whatever has happened to him. But beside him, McCoy acknowledges that Spock might be in trouble, and he thinks again of the conversation from earlier, of his belief that Spock could take care of himself. Obviously something has happened to him. He cannot take a chance on Spock, not when he knows something is wrong, not if—as is clear now—it’s not in his head, the product of his unhealthy infatuation with his first officer.

“Take charge of the landing party,” he says.

***

When Kirk sees him, he’s hanging out of a tree like a monkey, _laughing_ , for God’s sake, and Kirk feels something drop in his belly even as he is embarrassed for Spock and as he thinks briefly of the parallel evolution of all humanoid species, realizes he does not know of any modern Vulcan apes. He steps forward, toward the disconcerting, almost indecent, sight, and wishes he could order his companions not to approach with him, wishes he could order them to avert their eyes, to keep silent about what they have seen, or better still, to unsee it. He wishes he could, himself, even as he steps closer, closer, as if pulled by whatever inexplicable force has caused Spock himself to do this. But the girl is with him. The girl who had stared, who had said, “He will stay,” and that, on top of everything else, is chilling even as it is infuriating.

“Spock,” Kirk says.

He tries to speak sharply to him, but Spock is grinning, hanging from the tree like a lunatic, and in all the time Kirk has known Spock, he’s never done anything without a good reason. He is not, even now, able to suppress that. He moves on, telling the awful woman that she’ll need to evacuate, but Spock contradicts him, says, worst of all, “But perhaps we should go back and get you straightened out.”

Even as he knows all is not well, he feels a pang of something like humiliation. This time, for himself, not for Spock. What is happening here? Is he _drunk_ or something like that? Is this what Spock has been harboring for him, a sense that he needs to be _straightened out_ ? That there is something about him that needs correcting? But of course that doesn’t make sense— _straightened out_ how? And he’s not the one hanging off a tree. Kirk frowns at him. “Mr. Sulu,” he says, “Mr. Spock is under arrest.” But now Spock agrees, jumps down, and takes the woman’s hand, and leads them away. He takes her _hand_. Kirk feels almost as if his chest will pop, and still he’s baffled. It takes him a moment to recover and follow, but Spock only leads them a few meters away, to a patch of grotesque, twisted pink flowers, then he stops. His exquisite hand is still wrapped around the woman’s, their hands twisted together like the flowers’ stems, and equally repellent to Kirk. He is the last to come to a stop, squeezing in next to Spock without knowing why, almost as if he hopes to jog him back to reality, but suddenly the flowers discharge like a gun, covering them all with a white powder. Kirk holds his hands up to protect himself, but aside from a brief moment of giddiness that causes Kirk even further rage, he feels nothing, even as he looks around into the inexplicable wide smiles of his companions.

“Mr. Sulu understands, don’t you, Mr. Sulu?” Spock says.

“Yes,” Sulu says, like an idiot.

Kirk begins to understand, too. And he doesn’t like it.

He finds McCoy, can see almost instantly that he’s been affected, too. McCoy tells him that about a hundred of the disgusting, twisted plants have been beamed aboard the _Enterprise_ . Kirk grabs his communicator, demands to be beamed aboard to do damage control. The crewman operating the transporter sounds affected, too. He wonders how bad it is aboard the ship, and when he gets there, he sees that it’s worse than he’d imagined—one of the damned things is on the bridge, and the only other officer left there, Uhura, is still manning her station, but she’s damaged communications so he can’t even reach Starfleet. In a rage, he throws the flower across the bridge, probably showering everything with spores, he thinks, but what difference does it make? The other officers and crewmen are lining the halls, ready to beam down, ready to _mutiny_ , he reminds them, but they just nod and smile, and he knows he can’t run the ship alone. McCoy is no help, McCoy isn’t even interested in practicing medicine anymore. He says, when Kirk asks how they might counteract the spores, “Who wants to counteract paradise?” And Kirk thinks, _Whose paradise?_ He pushes ahead of the line to the transporter—no one bothers to resist—and beams himself back down. 

***

In the farmhouse, Spock and Sandoval are discussing the spores. Spock practically reclines in his seat, he’s so relaxed. Kirk can’t understand it, how Spock could be content with this. And what it is about him that makes him apparently immune.

“We have no want, no need,” Sandoval explains.

“It’s a true eden, Jim,” Spock says. “There is belonging, love.” Kirk wrenches his gaze away from Spock’s beseeching one. How often he’s wanted—there’s no point in not acknowledging it—how often he’s wanted Spock to speak to him of love, to let him know that he can feel it, that he, too, desires it. And he understands now, how Spock can, in this state, justify love to the rational part of himself, or to what remains of it. He’s always felt that a sense of belonging, an ability to express himself and be accepted, has been what Spock wanted, at his core, or at least that it was the one thing Spock wanted that he believed he couldn’t have.

“Join us,” Spock says. “Please.” Kirk forces his eyes away from Spock’s.

“I’m going back to the ship,” he says. Spock smiles, as if he’s resigned to it, but finds it amusing. Kirk pushes away his anger, the hurt and annoyance he feels at being dismissed this way. Whatever he’d wanted with Spock, he doesn’t want it like this, doesn’t want it with this version of Spock, indolent, emotional, who will doubtless be embarrassed at his own behavior once this incident is over—and it _will be_ over. If he can get Spock back, he knows they can figure out something, the two of them. They can do anything; as long as they’re together, they’re unstoppable. 

Back on board, he attempts one last time to communicate with anyone on board the ship, but there is no one. He’s alone, and he slumps in the bridge chair, trying one of the breathing techniques he’s learned over the years, letting his mind race, hoping it will come to some conclusion, but he just reaches a kind of calm in his new certainty and solitude. The truth is, there’s nothing for it, for the time being. The only solution, the only thing workable, is to try to keep the ship going as long as he can, try to get in touch with Starfleet, which will mean making repairs to the communications system, something he hasn’t had to do before. And if it doesn’t work, he’ll have to beam down—he won’t be able to keep the ship running on his own, and it won’t be safe to stay on board indefinitely. And eventually—well, eventually, someone from Starfleet will come looking for them when they don’t hear an update and they don’t arrive at Starbase 27. Of course, by then, he’ll probably have succumbed to those awful plants as well—or been affected by the Berthold rays and sickened irrevocably, but there’s no sense in focusing on that. He records a log entry to help him think. The plant next to him discharges, hits him full in the face, and though the air has been filled with spores the whole time he’s been aboard, this sudden blast is what puts him over the line, finally, with the rest of the crew, with the colony. Yes, the planet is beautiful. He’ll beam down. Why has he delayed? He’ll beam down right away. He’ll just need to pack a bag. He radios Spock, tells him he’s coming.

In his rooms, he packs a few things, not sure if he needs them or not, but what does it matter, really? He’s always thought his green shirt with the gold braid flatters him, even if it’s not exactly regulation, so he packs that. He opens his drawers, looking for anything else he’s always—but there are badges, brass. That he’s _earned_ . That he’s earned for exploring, for sacrifices he’s made. And—no. Perhaps not, perhaps he won’t need those. He snaps his bag closed, walks down to the transporter room. Once he beams down, he cannot return. There will be no one to beam him aboard. That will be it, no more _Enterprise_ . His captaincy a failure, his crew mutinied, himself marooned. No, no. Has he really—no. He can’t do this. He can’t leave. He won’t. What— _how_ could he have even been about to do this? The spores. Spock. He needs Spock. It’s the only way. He steadies himself. He thinks.

Strong emotions get rid of the spores. So if he can get Spock back aboard, get him to...feel? He sighs. Why that? Anything but that. As if it isn’t what he’s been trying to do for years, anyway. Though he suspects negative feelings will be what’s needed here. And that means he’ll have to hurt Spock. It is, after all, the only way. His own words come back to him, “I don’t know what I can offer against Paradise,” he’d said. But that doesn’t matter now. Perhaps it’s wrong for him to want to strip Spock of his peace, but that’s not all of who Spock is. Perhaps it is paradise to him as he is now. But it can’t last, not if he understands who Spock is, and there’s even a kernel of that man still left. He won’t want to stagnate, lose that drive in him that McCoy mistakes for ambition. He will have Spock back, and eventually, Spock will thank him. They all will.


	4. All That You Knew

As the inflammatory device works, as the colonists beam up, Spock, alone again, meditates. Once he was free of the spores, it was as if the time he’d spent with them inside of him was a dream. He can remember it, but the memories came back to him slowly, bringing shame that pushes against the other emotions he has been successfully keeping at bay—shock, horror. He’d nearly killed the Captain. His body had only rejected the spores when he felt it, the incredible horror of standing over Jim, holding his hands up as if to say no more—no more, from Spock. And he’d realized then, what he’d been about to do, and then, there was no more of the feeling of belonging, the feeling that would have let him beat his Captain with a metal stool—and he would have struck him efficiently, with sufficient force—no. It does not bear considering. And yet, Spock cannot push it aside, cannot force away the knowledge that he might have killed this man, his Captain, when before the spores, and now, after the spores—and really, even during the spores, though that time is so hazy—he would have said that the Captain meant more to him than anyone ever had. There had been no time to consider it. Leila had asked to come on board, and he felt he owed her at least that. She would be off the sproes soon enough, would probably be embarrassed, herself. Perhaps all the colonists would. He would talk to her while she would still want to hear from him. Would say goodbye to her while she still wanted to hear it—he had not said goodbye to her six years ago, and he knew now that she must still have some of that pain with her, pain he had caused, though it is nothing to what he might have done to Jim.

Sometimes, Spock thinks others are right about him; he is not to be trusted, a volatile, unknowable quantity. A terrible Vulcan, lacking restraint, and yet not suitable for human contact either, lacking the ability to express himself, possessed of too much physical strength to be a truly safe companion for a human, especially when there were so many forces at work that might deprive him of his control. He had hit Jim before, under the influence of the polywater from Psi 2000, but never anything like this. He remembers what Jim said about him before it happened, the words coming back to him slowly. A half-breed, Jim had said, and it had struck him as odd that Jim would remark on that, even still with the spores. But then he had made a series of nonsensical comments that Spock had not completely understood, had taken for aggression, certainly, but it was not until Jim had said that he belonged in a circus that he had felt true anger. An archaic, earth concept, to be sure, but the insult was not lost on him; he had heard, all too often as a child, his mother whispering to Sarek, “I will not have him treated like a circus freak,” when he insisted that Spock be subjected to a round of tests, when the other children stared at him, when people pointed him out on the street. A childish taunt, then, and Jim could have been…

The door chimes.

Spock wonders if it is Leila, if, free of the spores, she has returned after all, and he braces himself, but when he opens his eyes and says, “Come,” it is Jim who enters, grinning.

“Well, Mr. Spock,” he says, “That’s all of the colonists.” He sighs, looking more serious before adding, “There’s no one left at the other colonies. Sandoval broke down and cried like a baby. _All the lost time_ , he said.”

“Indeed.” Spock says.

“Am I interrupting your meditation?” Jim says. 

“No, Captain,” Spock lies. The captain catches his eye as if to say he understands the lie for what it is, but he doesn’t say anything about it; nor does he apologize for the interruption. 

“Spock,” he says. And he is standing far too close.

“Captain,” Spock says, and he cannot suppress the panic from his voice, not entirely; it sounds like a mild question. Jim’s hands are on his arms, and he is staring Spock full in the face, from so close Spock could bend down and kiss his mouth, like he had done just that afternoon with Leila. And the Captain’s expression...no. Spock holds himself very still.

“Ms. Kalomi is aboard as well,” the captain says. He’s using the tone he uses when he wants Spock to answer a question he hasn’t actually asked.

“ _Doctor_ , Captain,” he says. And Kirk looks confused, so he says, “ _Dr._ Kalomi.”

“Oh. Right.” The captain lets go of him. Takes a step back.

“Spock,” Captain Kirk says again, not facing him any longer. “Would you like to join me—”

“Yes,” Spock says.

“Well, I haven’t asked you yet.”

“It is phrased as an invitation, Captain. Whatever you have invited me to, this evening, I am pleased to accept.”

“All right,” Kirk says, after a moment, his eyes wide. He looks down briefly, as if he’s uncomfortable. Then he says, reaching around Spock to tap him on the back. “Come for a walk with me. Observation deck.”

But then, at the door, the Captain stops him, his hand sliding from Spock’s back to his arm, and grasping him there. “Spock,” he says again. “I can’t help but think I owe you an apology.”

Spock suppresses the shock and panic that hit him all over again. How could this man, who had saved him after he’d mutinied, who had risked his own life to do so, who he had almost killed over a childish insult, think he owed Spock anything at all now, least of anything an apology?

“No apology—”

“No, no, listen. I think you already know I didn’t mean anything I said when I beamed you aboard. But you...you were happy down there, with that girl. Dr. Kalomi. And I suppose in a way, I took that from you, took it from everyone, really, but there’s duty and, there’s...Spock, I think you give too much to duty sometimes. I’m not sure why, but I’m sorry for what I did to you, even as I know I—” 

“Captain, you are being illogical,” Spock says, his heart hammering.

“I am an illogical being, Mr. Spock,” the Captain says, and his eyes look strangely bright. He takes his hand off Spock’s arm, and to Spock’s alarm, grasps his hand briefly, a current shooting through Spock as he feels the Captain’s mind, feels the truth of what he says next even as Jim senses his discomfort at the gesture and withdraws. “I...want you to be happy,” he says. “And I’m sorry, if, however necessarily, I took that from you.”

_No_ , Spock thinks. He can’t be correct, Jim can’t feel all of that for him. There must be something—he must be misunderstanding something. No one could care that much, that way— 

“I am a Vulcan, Captain,” Spock says. “My happiness is of no importance.”

Jim’s jaw sets, he looks almost angry.

“That’s not true, Spock,” he almost whispers. “I’ll never accept that, even if you do.”

They stand there, looking at each other. Spock feeling like he ought to soothe him, somehow, but unsure of what to say.

“The observation deck, Captain?” he finally says.

“Oh, of course,” Jim says. He laughs, but it sounds forced. As they walk, it occurs to Spock that Jim usually eats at about this time, and he is about to mention it when he sees a crowd of colonists outside the recreation room in lines for the replicator, and Leila is among them. She catches his eye and nods at him, soberly.

“Spock,” Jim says again, and Spock has the impression that he is trying to tell him something, something that he is somehow not hearing. 

“What is it, Jim?” he says, trying to inflect sympathy into his voice.

“Do you...want to have dinner now?”

Spock looks down at him, Jim’s face carefully mimicking his usual open expression, and it occurs to Spock that this is how Jim always looks when he mentions Leila, as if he has thoughts he believes he has no right to, opinions he will not express. He recognizes the look, the feeling, as one he has often had, though he hopes he had not been so transparent.

“Right now,” Spock says, “I am otherwise engaged.”

Kirk smiles, almost a laugh, and puts a hand on Spock’s back. Spock feels almost elated to have caused this reaction. Perhaps he should have completed his meditation.

“You don’t want to talk to her?” Kirk asks.

“I desire _your_ company at this moment.” He refrains from adding to that. But Kirk doesn’t stop there. He taps the button opening the deck, and they step inside; it’s empty except for a couple of colonists. Kirk lifts his hand from Spock’s back and approaches them, a man and two women. He puts his arms around the two women and leans in as he speaks to all three of them, as if including them all in a secret, and they leave, looking chastened and pleased about it, a state of mind Kirk seems uniquely able to create in people.

“I told them the deck was reserved for business,” Kirk explains.

“A lie, Captain?”

“Spock,” Kirk says again, and again it sounds like an attempt. “You know, I wasn’t prepared for anything that happened today.”

“Were you ever really affected by the spores?” Spock asks.

“Oh, yes. For just a moment...I...thought I would beam down and join you. But you were still with...Dr. Kalomi when I radioed, and it reminded me of why I’d been so...And then when I saw all my medals from the fleet and thought about the _Enterprise_ and how you’ve been by my side this whole time...” 

“You are bothered by my acquaintance with Dr. Kalomi?”

“I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you,” Kirk says, and there’s something harsh and defiant in his tone, as if he’s forcing the words out. “Not to something so banal. A woman with a crush. The idea that it would be more important to you than...the _Enterprise_ , than the Fleet. Than—”

“Captain. Even under the spores’ influence, I would not have stated _that_ to be the case. The spores—if you were under their influence for even a moment, you must realize that their effect on the feelings is universal. I loved everyone. There was always a certain undercurrent to Leila’s interest in me. So that became more pronounced. But, I confess I very much hoped you would join us. I was...elated when you did so.”

“You didn’t seem it.”

“I had no experience with the feeling,” Spock says. “I was unsure how to...express it. But I think we would have resumed our friendship. I think it would have been...extremely signficant. Though we would have abandoned the _Enterprise_.” 

Kirk frowns. “Spock,” he tries again. “I...I couldn’t do this without you.” He turns to Spock. “I can’t, Spock. Not anymore.”

“Do what, exactly, Captain?”

Jim shudders for a moment, the air ripping out of him as he exhales, a word almost lost in his breath.

“Live,” he says. And he looks broken, so broken that Spock’s weakened defenses are destroyed, and he reaches out, takes the man’s arms in his hands, near his shoulders, as if to hold him up, but Kirk is staring at him now, the traces of wondering curiosity on his face amplified so that he is staring at Spock as he might at some object of unseen natural beauty and he is reaching up for him, and Spock lets him, even though his brain both knows what he is inviting, knows that he must reject it, and the Captain’s lips are on his. _Jim’s lips are on his._ And they are warm, like his hands, and soft, smooth, and Spock can feel everything in the touch that he has seen in Jim’s eyes, felt in his presence, the kindness, the strength, acceptance, and a kind of regard Spock has never imagined could be directed at him...all of it there, and wanted, and real. And Spock wants to relax into it, to allow it, tells himself that he must, just for now; Jim is so distressed. And he has so wanted this...and what, really, is the harm? Jim ends it, pulls back, looks at him. And Spock has not recovered, has not restored his stoic mask, and Jim says, again, “Spock.” But this time it’s not with effort, but with relief, and wonder, and joy. And Jim touches his face, the sensations stronger now, as his fingers brush Spock’s psi points. And against his own feelings, filling him up like a cool drink, like sustenance itself, he knows he must rebel, could have done so, were it not for this confirmation that he must rebel against Jim’s feelings, too. His beloved Captain, who he cannot betray, cannot disappoint, cannot hurt, not when he’s free of spores, of viral water, of anything, but his own volition, his own Vulcanness. He would give him anything, but this—it is not within his power to give him this. 

“Captain,” he says. And Jim’s eyes change in an instant.

“No,” he says. “I know you felt something. I know—”

“Captain,” he repeats. “I am a Vulcan. “What I feel is of no—” 

“Don’t say it...Spock?”

“Jim,” Spock says. And for a moment, Kirk looks hopeful, the light in his eyes galvanizing Spock even as he shuts it out, keeps going, “I wonder if you can understand.” And he removes his arm from Kirk’s grip, crosses the deck in a few strides, and lets himself out, wondering if Kirk can tell that he is shaking, barely able to maintain a calm face, a measured stride. In his room, he wants nothing more than to cry, but he cannot indulge this urge because if he indulges one urge, why not another? No. He sits on his bed, he inhales, he exhales, he undresses, he lights incense, he sits in meditation, he will meditate until he has no further need of it. He meditates until the start of his shift, sixteen hours later. But the only idea that is distilled in him is Jim, his Captain, his friend, the softness of his lips, the desperation in his voice; a denial, an impossibility. When he emerges, he says, reflexively, as he might have spoken to a misbehaving I-Chaya, “No.”

He dresses for shift, and goes to the bridge.

***

Kirk does not look up when Spock arrives on the bridge, only offers him a small smile when Spock takes the science station and turns around to greet him. Spock nods at him, looks as if he thinks this is a normal day, as if just yesterday he hadn’t mutinied, hadn’t hung from a tree like a Vulcan simian—Kirk still hasn’t acertained whether they exist—hadn’t stood with his captain in the observation deck while that captain kissed him and deluded himself into thinking his attentions were wanted.

Though, he knows, even now, in the light of day (or so to speak) that that isn’t _quite_ right. Spock hadn’t kissed him back enthusiastically—he was too controlled, and perhaps too unpracticed for that, at least when he was in his right mind—but there had been a willingness there, in the way Spock had moved against him, had parted his lips—just before he’d pulled away. If Spock hadn’t wanted him, he was more than capable of defending himself, as he’d also demonstrated just yesterday. Kirk pushes away that thought. That had been his own doing, not Spock’s, and afterwards, when they’d rigged up the rudiments of the inflammatory device, Spock had turned to him, had whispered. “I might have killed you, Jim.” And Kirk had gripped his arm, shaking his head no, had wanted to do more, but then wasn’t the time, and that was the moment he’d told himself, _Tonight. I’ll go to him tonight. I can’t lie to myself anymore, and lying to Spock is just as bad._ But now, he thinks he might owe Spock an apology.

“Distress signal, Captain,” Uhura says. Kirk snaps back to the bridge. “It’s from Janus 6. The pergium production station.”

“On screen,” he says.

“They don’t have that capability,” Uhura says. “But I can get you contact.”

“Please do, Lieutenant.”

“Affirmative, Captain. Contact established.”

“Captain Kirk of the _Enterprise_?”

“Speaking.”

“We require your assistance. Can you send a landing party? There’s something down here you ought to see.”

Kirk looks up; Spock is watching him.

“We’re on our way,” he says, nodding at Spock. “Doctor McCoy to transporter room for landing party.”

***

It doesn’t slow down. Any other time, Kirk would be grateful, but after this incident—not just his own incident on the observation deck, but the spores, which he knows must have had an impact on Spock’s equilibrium—and he supposes he inadvertently took advantage of that—he craves a couple of quiet weeks. But after losing a few crewmen to the same thing killing Vanderberg’s men at the station, he reluctantly allowed Spock to meld with the creature doing the killing, a creature Spock had been willing to sacrifice his principles for and kill to protect his Captain, which Kirk struggled not to take personally, though it had warmed him from the inside, had made him think that perhaps he was forgiven, although moments before he’d felt the opposite, when Spock had disobeyed his orders, telling the men to attempt to capture, rather than kill. Perhaps, he thought, watching Spock meld with it, they were simply true friends. Friends cared for one another deeply. There were friends whose love ran soul-deep. Even as he watched, he felt almost envious of the Horta. What would it feel like to share his mind with Spock, to have Spock see all of him, to know Spock so intimately as well? And were these—could these be—the thoughts of a friend, a very special friend? Did Spock see him as that at least?

And then the incident with the Organians, the Klingons, and the mind-sifter, and he was so afraid that Spock would be brain-damaged, would not be the same afterwards, and when they beamed back aboard, he’d gone to Spock’s room when their duty shift had ended, had been let in, but he just sat and watched, as a cover, he suggested chess, and Spock agreed, and Kirk tried to hide how carefully he observed his friend, examining his hands for any tremor, his face for any sign of mental unwellness. But Spock’s mask was unmoving. And that, while it may have meant Spock was all right, also meant that he was shutting Kirk out, and didn’t that, in itself, mean there was a problem? But then, later, on the bridge, Spock had said Kirk had been restrained since they’d left Organia. And Kirk was taken aback by the question. Spock was the one being formal. Or, not formal, exactly, but...well, behaving more distantly, as if the kiss had never happened, nor the moments leading up to it, as if their friendship was less than it was. Well, except for that moment with the horta, when he’d thought it might kill Kirk. But, Kirk reminded himself, it was a first officer’s duty to protect the Captain. And anyway, if Kirk was now restrained, and the kiss was too much, then just what did Spock want?

***

“Are you all right, Jim?” McCoy asks at dinner.

“I’m fine, Bones,” he says. “It’s Spock I’m worried about.”

McCoy sighs. “What’s the matter with the green-blooded hobgoblin now?”

“All of this,” Kirk waves a hand. “You know?”

“No,” McCoy says, looking like he wants to laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me.”

“He’s—it’s like he’s shutting me out,” Kirk says. It sounds foolish, he knows, hearing it out loud, but McCoy doesn’t call him out on it.

“He’s been through a lot lately,” Bones says. 

“You’re telling me, Bones,” Kirk says. Bones studies him a moment.

“Jim,” he says. “Did something happen? I don’t mean a mission. I mean with you? The two of you?”

Kirk frowns at Bones, who shakes his head, holds up a hand.

“Now, I just mean—I know you care about him. But he—”

“I don’t want to hear any of your—”

“Now, just wait a minute.” McCoy says, then, softer. “I know Spock cares about you, too. But I don’t think he always knows how to...Jim, have you talked to him about it? About...whatever it is that’s happened?”

“Who said anything happened, Bones? He’s just being Spock,” Kirk says.

“Well, you said it this time,” Bones says, he looks satisfied for a moment, before softening again. “Come on. Tell me all about it.”

Kirk gulps the rest of his water. “There’s nothing to tell, Bones,” he says. “Forget I said anything.”

But Bones is scowling now, studying Kirk. The intercom system chirps.

“Chief Engineer and Captain to Bridge,” says Uhura, a note of something in her voice that suggests trouble. Kirk stands, tugs his tunic into place.

“Duty calls,” he says, raising his eyebrows at McCoy, who lifts his fork a moment, pointing it at Kirk lazily.

*** 

They are moving into orbit around a planet that’s causing a time disturbance. Spock is already on the bridge, at the science station. Kirk glances at him, as he and Scotty emerge from the turbolift and go to their stations, but Spock does not look up.

“Status, Mr. Spock,” Kirk says.

“We are orbiting an uncharted planet from which a time displacement of some kind seems to be emanating.” The ship shakes, and Kirk clutches at his armrests.

“I recommend maintaining orbit until we can gain more data. This is significant, Captain,” Spock says.

“We’re going to tear her apart!” Scotty says.

The ship rocks again. “What’s causing—”

“Time disturbances, Captain. We are as close as we have ever come,” Spock says.

“Red alert,” Kirk says. “Can we maintain?” he asks Scott as sirens start. Uhura and Scott exchange a glance, and Kirk feels a flare of anger. _What?_ he feels like snapping.

Kirk watches Spock as he takes readings, logs notes, occasionally leaning over to confer with Uhura and Scott. Kirk feels useless. It’s not a feeling he’s used to.

“Control circuits threatening to overload, Captain,” says Scotty. Spock assures them that they’ll be done soon. Kirk glances around. Sulu’s console lights up seconds before it explodes, knocking him back. Kirk runs to him, and fortunately, he’s not burned or injured beyond being knocked out.

Scotty takes the helm. “Do we maintain this orbit, Captain,” he asks, and his question is a formality, Kirk can tell. Even so, Kirk turns to Spock, silently redirecting the question to him.

His voice is so calm; it’s like nothing has happened, like nothing is happening. “This is of great scientific importance, Captain,” he says. Kirk nods.

“Maintain orbit,” Kirk says. Uhura and Scotty simply stare at him this time, Uhura looks flabbergasted. He tells her to contact Starfleet Command with their logs from the past week of study as they approached this time disturbance. His instruction tells the entire bridge crew that they could be near death. He can’t look at Spock.

Bones arrives on the bridge, leans over Sulu, wakes him right up with cordruzine. He should have left the bridge after that, but when they hit a patch of turbulence--one more orbit, Spock says--Kirk, turns around and finds him staggering, holding the hypospray against his body. He collapses. Spock now does move from his station. Almost everyone does, but Kirk orders them away even as Spock leans over Bones, Kirk reaches for his friend as Spock finds and takes the hypospray, empty and set for cordruzine. McCoy’s skin is pasty and mottled. A gloss of sweat covers him, and, muscles tight, he jumps to his feet, screaming. No one can stop him until it is too late. McCoy has beamed himself down to the planet below, down to the source of the time disturbance.

***

Kirk beams down a landing party made up mostly of the crew currently on the bridge, trying to minimize the number of people with access to the information, and thus, the number of people with cause for panic. He trusts his crew, but he doesn’t relish effectivelly announcing, “The captain expects us all to die any moment now.” He orders them to search for McCoy. McCoy, he thinks, deserves better than a life of madness. But perhaps they will have to take their chances on that. He would be the person most qualified to treat himself, but they have other doctors aboard the ship. Bones will recover. As the landing party disperses, Kirk stays with Spock, who is examining his tricorder searching for the source of the time displacement.

They stop in front of it; at least, Spock says this is it. Kirk, who thinks he can no longer be surprised, still feels the involuntary jolt when it introduces itself.

“I am the Guardian of Forever.”

“A time portal, Captain,” Spock says. “A gateway to other times and dimensions, if I’m correct.”

“As correct as possible for you,” says the Guardian. “Your science knowledge is obviously primitive.”

“Really.” Spock says. And Kirk looks up at him, his offense as decorous as everything else about him, but more visible than he might like, and Kirk can’t resist calling him on it, on his emotion. 

“Annoyed, Spock?” he says, pointedly. He’s glad about it on some level, though he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“Behold,” says the Guardian, and it’s like there’s a screen where previously there was nothing, a screen showing them images of the past—of _Earth’s_ past.

But McCoy arrives, shouting, running, leaping, and they subdue him, or Spock does. Kirk feels heavy at his success where everyone else has failed. Nothing remarkable about it, not with his record, his abilities, just further proof that the man is truly exceptional, that it’s not only in Kirk’s mind. Can’t he be forgiven this fascination? Couldn’t the universe understand, take pity? Perhaps it has, perhaps it does. If they can’t use this portal to save McCoy—Spock is right about that, too, shutting down the idea immediately—he watches as the images play. He can feel Spock’s eyes on him.

“Strangely compelling isn’t it?” Kirk says. “To step through there...and lose oneself in another world.”

“I am a fool,” Spock says. Kirk turns to him, hopeful, but almost alarmed. _Please, yes, but not here,_ he thinks. But Spock is only talking about using his tricorder, only talking about making recordings for the sake of history, science. And of course he’s right to be focused on the matter at hand, but it still hurts. No. They have to focus on this as a problem—Kirk can’t be tempted to erase his life and leap after the fantasy of a new one from his own history. He knows, after all, what comes of fantasies. And he’s not paying attention, not listening to Spock, really, beyond the cadence of his voice, and no one else is paying attention, either, because there are layers of them; the landing party stands three deep behind him, and McCoy somehow breaks through, them all and decides for Kirk. He is the one who has leapt to somewhere in history. And now, it’s not a history that’s theirs anymore at all: the _Enterprise_ is gone.

“Your vessel, your beginning...all that you knew...is gone,” says the Guardian.


	5. An Uncommon Woman

They are on Earth. America. 1930s. The Depression, Spock thinks. Nearly everyone in a state of total indigence. It is no wonder that Earth’s history has played out as it has, though—humans are a devastatingly emotional species. Spock studies the captain, his usual ease at fabrication somehow thwarted by these circumstances, which create a need to fabricate everything—their presence, their attire, their technology, their provenance, Spock’s very existence. At least Kirk is human, American, comfortable with his knowledge of the place, of the history and culture, and, with his light skin, fits in without incurring any of the additional prejudices against dark skin common to this area at this time. It might have been disastrous had McCoy leapt, say, into a rainforest in South America, or onto the African Serengeti. Inwardly, he can acknowledge that Kirk’s difficulty is amusing, if these are hardly circumstances for amusement. Outwardly, though, he bristles when Kirk notices the interest with which he observes his Captain’s discomfort. Kirk, too, might have been amused, might have found Spock’s emotionalism humorous just days ago, but instead he seems annoyed, something uncharacteristically scornful in his tone as he sets the clothes they’ve stolen on a table and says, “At times you seem almost human.” Spock forces away a twinge of guilt as he remembers how Kirk had stood up for him on Organia, how in that moment, he had thought of Kirk’s lips on his, the fire in Kirk’s mind that had ignited something in Spock, too, and had felt so excited, so agitated at that memory, and so disturbed and crushed by his memory of how he had met that gesture, that fire, by turning away from it, that he had barely been able to maintain his inner equilibrium. The mindsifter, whatever he’d told Kirk, had been excruciating, but he was determined that no one have access to that one beautiful memory, that single shimmering drop of gold at the center of his otherwise barren inner landscape. So he’d kept his barriers sturdy, kept _everything_ out, even T’Pring and the neverending waves of opaque gray she’d erected between them. The Klingons got nothing from him. Nothing at all. And after, Jim, from whom he’d expected more emotionalism, had come to his quarters and asked only for their customary game of chess, which Spock was happy to give. But when he left, it felt like there was something missing, like there was something more Spock had wanted from the interaction, though he knew that his nameless desire would not bear closer scrutiny.

“You’ve been most restrained since we left Organia,” he’d said, on the bridge, reflecting, as he spoke, that this was not the best place to get his meaning across. Well, if he had delayed, he would not have acted. _Kadiith._

But it was after that that Jim had assumed this new attitude, acquiescent but impatient, distant, calling Spock out on every perceived instance of either emotion or “coldness.” They’d detected the time disturbances around the same time, and he’d requested they move closer. Scotty had spent almost as much time on the bridge as he had, modifying the helm to avoid the various issues that cropped up with time displacements, but nothing like this had ever been seen before. Spock had been absorbed in it, and Kirk had given him full reign as science officer, possibly more than he’d deserved. For the week leading up to their direct encounter with the Guardian, there had been many small injuries as people stumbled, hurt themselves due to the turbulence. An uptick in psychiatric visits due to the additional stress of almost constant red alert. And now, here they are. The _Enterprise_ is no more, and they are indigent, too, in a barbaric ancient world that ran on a currency no one seemed to have. Trapped on a planet where Spock does not belong, in a time where none of them do, to attempt to stop McCoy, hopefully to save him—though they do not know even if that is possible. The captain _should_ be angry at him, perhaps, that is, if he is going to have any emotion toward Spock at all. But of course he will. Jim Kirk is Jim Kirk. And Spock is Spock. He picks up some of the stolen clothing, examines it.

“Captain,” he says, “I hardly believe that insults are within your prerogative as my commanding officer.” He doesn’t lay the stress on those last two words. Just saying them is enough, at once a reminder and a surrender in a fight he doesn’t want to have.

***

Kirk averts his eyes as Spock pulls his tunic over his head and buttons himself into a grey heather shirt. He moves a little behind him and faces away. His hands shake slightly when he glances behind him for his shoes and glimpses Spock’s bare legs, a light down over their trim musculature. No matter. He steadies his breathing, adjusts his shoes and rises. Spock is still tucking in his shirt, his hands sliding beneath the waistband of his jeans, too big in the waist, as are Kirk’s own.

They discuss their plight, and Spock laments their computerlessness. Kirk feels the odd zap he’s been feeling lately, when Spock behaves as if something is beyond him. Kirk never feels that anything at all could be beyond Spock. “Yes, well, it would pose an extremely complex problem in logic, Mr. Spock,” Kirk says. “Excuse me. I sometimes expect too much of you.” He knows the effect it will have on Spock. Knows, too, that he could have achieved the same result by simply being straightforward, but he doesn’t want to. He was straightforward before, and look where that got him. He turns away, checking the fire in the little stove, thinking he still needs to apologize to Spock, if he’s going to, if he can work out whether it’s worth bringing it up, just to clear the air, but there’s a rattling of the door opening, a woman calling out, “Who’s there?” Spock runs back to the pile of clothes, pulling on a knit cap to cover his ears and brows, as Kirk turns to the stairs to do damage control. The woman who appears is beautiful, tall, and somehow both stern and soft. Kirk tells her the truth; he tells her some of the facts—not all of them, of course, but there’s something...knowing about her somehow.

She offers them work.

“At what rate of payment?” Spock says. And Kirk looks around at him in surprise. “I need radio tubes and so forth. For my hobby.” What is he doing? He’d thought Spock understood that he should probably do the talking here—Spock didn’t exactly blend in, even in his jeans and wool hat.

When she leaves them, after they accept her offer, get her name, find out where they are, Jim turns to Spock. “Radio tubes and so on?” he says. “I approve of hobbies, Mr. Spock.” He hands Spock a broom. Now is not the time for his apologies.

Upstairs, they sit and eat, while Edith—the woman—begins talking about her goals with the 21st Street Mission, their new place of employment. Jim is appalled when a man starts to speak of her disrespectfully, but he can’t deny the man’s unspoken assertion that she is lovely, and all the more so because she doesn’t seem deliberately seductive like so many of the women he meets, who behave that way because they want something from him. She’s intelligent, intuitive, driven, and motivated by something other than her own needs and wants. Kirk hasn’t met anyone, ever, who’s struck him so immediately as a kindred spirit.

“I find her most uncommon, Mr. Spock,” he says. And it feels almost like he’s seeking permission, almost like this is the closest he’ll come to an apology, to a walkback, unless Spock demands it. But Kirk doesn’t let his gaze linger on Spock, though he feels Spock beside him, unimpressed. Well, all right then. That’s as usual. He glances at Spock just in time to see Spock directing a glance at the ceiling. _Really?_ An _eye roll_ , from _Spock_? Well, he supposes that answers that. Spock hadn’t taken him seriously, on the observation deck, still doesn’t now. It tugs at something in Kirk, at his instinct to fix things, but now he’s starting to think that this can’t be fixed, not really. How could he tell Spock that he’d been serious, that he really didn’t know if he could live without him, and then apologize now for expressing the exact sentiments all those weeks ago? It would be nonsensical. 

They bus their trays, and Edith, behind the counter now, calls after him, comes up to him.

“You are uncommon workmen,” she says, smiling at him, her gaze on his making him realize that Spock has gone ahead without him. She’s used the same word he had just a moment ago. _Uncommon_ , not the most common word itself. Is this some kind of sign? A signal from the universe? He imagines saying as much to Spock, the reaction he’d get.

She offers them a place to sleep, or rather, tells them where they can get one. And he makes her laugh—unintentionally, but there it is, and she’s cute laughing, dropping all her layers of responsibility and duty for just a moment; and then there’s the reason for the laughter, the reason her smile cuts so deep—it’s as if she’s endeared by his lack of knowledge, and it makes her protective, of him. And that feels...uncommon. And nice.

He tells Spock about the new living arrangement he’s found for them, using Edith’s word, their new _flop_ , but Spock isn’t impressed with that either. Doesn’t even seem relieved. And Kirk can read him, usually. No, something _is_ off here. He’ll have to sort that out. He’ll have to. But it’s easier not to think about it. Especially now, with Edith distracting him.

With Edith, Kirk moves slowly, lets her set the pace. His fiasco with Spock has reminded him both that he’s capable of doing so and that not doing so can have consequences. Spock is busy; Spock is putting together what he needs to build a computer capable of analyzing time. He doesn’t leave the flop, doesn’t go out at all except to do the work they have to do to make the money he needs for supplies. Kirk is the one who actually buys the supplies, scavenging from discarded metal when he can, and always to Spock’s disappointment.

***

One evening Spock actually asks for a block of platinum, seeming not to realize what platinum is worth in these times. Kirk can’t explain why he snaps at Spock instead of explaining, possibly because he can’t believe Spock really doesn’t know, possibly some other reason. And of course, Spock doubles down. “Captain, you’re asking me to work with equipment which is hardly very far ahead of stone knives and bearskins,” he says. And there is something distinctly petulant there, in his tone. He glares at Kirk with cold disdain.

“McCoy’ll be along in a few days,” Kirk tells him, impatiently.

But Spock says he needs three weeks or a month at this rate. And Kirk wants to explode at him, can’t shake the feeling that Spock is putting their mission in jeopardy by trying, in his way, to make some kind of point.

But then there’s a knock at the door, and it’s Edith. Spock retreats to his corner for his cap, to cover his ears. But Edith has come to say she has found work for them. They have to leave, they have to abandon their discussion, in case there’s any chance they can find what they need for a price they can afford.

At the job site, there are tools. Spock says that with these, he should be able to work faster, so he opens the box and pockets them. They’ll be back in the morning, he says, and he’ll work all night so he can return them then. They have a chance. The work they do there is exhausting, at least for Kirk—some cleaning, some furniture moving, and as a final task, they stoke the furnace in the basement and prepare to head home.

But Edith storms into the basement. “That toolbox was locked with a combination lock and you opened it like a real pro. Why did you do it?”

“I needed the fine tools for my radio work,” Spock says. “They’d have been returned in the morning.”

“I’m sorry,” Edith says, shaking her head. “I can’t—”

Kirk almost forgets it sometimes, that anyone could doubt Spock’s honor. Even now, annoyed as he had been only a moment ago at Spock’s tonelessness, at his lack of apology, at his failure to make any effort at all to seem like a human being of the 1930s, he bristles at it, finds it almost appalling that she went directly to Spock without question, though he assumes someone else must have told her something they’d seen and she’d put it together, figured it out.

“If Mr. Spock says that he needs the tools and that they’ll be returned tomorrow morning, you can bet your reputation on that, Ms. Keeler,” he says. Isn’t that what a man from this time period would say? Or is it too much? Edith studies him, agrees, if he’ll agree to walk her home and answer her questions. That’ll leave Spock to finish up here, get back to their flop on his own, which somehow makes Kirk slightly nervous. Spock doesn’t need a babysitter, but still.

“You know as well as I do how out of place you two are around here,” Edith says, and this is exactly Kirk’s point about Spock, but he says nothing. It will only raise more questions if he protests leaving Spock alone.

“Where would you estimate we belong, Ms. Keeler?” Spock says.

“You? At his side as if you’ve always been there and always will,” Edith says. And Kirk feels a pang, and Spock looks at him, but he doesn’t react. Edith continues to study Kirk, even as she answers Spock, but as for where Kirk belongs, she has nothing. “I’ll figure it out eventually,” she says. They stare at each other, Kirk now sure. This walk home, this promise to figure it out—figure him out—it’s a signal, but it may not be from the universe.

“I’ll finish with the furnace,” Spock says. And it sounds like, “Please leave.” Kirk feels another pang.

***

Kirk doesn’t look back as Spock walks to the furnace, continues stoking it, but walks out, hand in hand with Edith Keeler. Spock smarts internally. Though he tries to maintain equilbrium, the truth is, it’s been harder here. Kirk has continued the sniping, the dismissiveness, and it has made Spock himself querulous, at least by his own standards. He does not understand how to get them back to normal—the source of the problem is not himself, he is sure of that now, and the time alone and doing simple manual labor has given him ample—overabundant, perhaps—time for reflection. The Captain is annoyed...with him. It is unmistakable. This is the longest he’s ever treated Spock this way. But Spock has not done anything that he is aware of. Of course there was the incident on the observation deck. But that was more than a month ago now, and the Captain had not seemed annoyed then, so much as hurt. He had not seemed _annoyed_ with him since the incident with the Horta, when he had asked the crewmen to capture rather than kill. And although it is true that Kirk has seemed to be keeping a check on himself since their time on Organia, this prickliness toward Spock is new. And the only thing Spock can think of that can have changed the Captain’s thinking toward himself, Edith Keeler, did not even enter the equation until after the Captain’s behavior already changed, so Spock must simply be missing something.

Spock finishes with the furnace, makes his way slowly back to the flop. It will not do to dwell on the vagaries of human emotions. They are seldom logical, which means that Spock is unlikely to understand them even with a great deal of thought expounded upon the subject. And he has already expounded a great deal of thought on the subject of Jim.

In the flop, Spock removes the tools from his jacket and immediately goes to work on the computer, creating and adjusting circuits and wires. It takes him several hours and yet Jim does not return. His heart thrums in his side, he has a sick feeling, and he tells himself that it is merely that he did not eat—Edith Keeler had, after all, interrupted them just before their mealtime. He washes some of the strange leafy vegetable Kirk brought him in the communal sink down the hall—everything is very dirty in these times, then tears it up to make himself a salad. He eats quickly, focusing on the nutrition, as there is very little flavor. Even on Vulcan, salads are not served featuring only one vegetable and no condiments, but he needs to focus, and it isn’t as if he would taste anything anyway in his present state of mind. There is a part of him that feels as if it is dying, and he tries not to mind since he knows that it should die, should be dead already—had never deserved to exist. This he does not reflect on, merely knows it, like he knows there is air to breathe.

Finally, he wipes his hands before fitting the final circuits in place, then adjusts a few of the knobs. The screen flashes. He can adjust the knobs to analyze different versions of different moments in time, based on the recording from the time vortex. The screen hums to life, showing him a 1930 newpaper article, featuring a photo of Edith Keeler. The headline reads: “Social Worker Killed.” It’s all he has time for before the circuit starts to overload, the screen’s colors separating themselves into useless striations of black on white. _Edith Keeler. Dead._ Something inside of him shifts as he stands, adjusts one of the knobs to try again, but Jim enters then before he can think.

“How are the stone knives and bearskins going?” he asks.

Spock begins to try to explain what he’s seen. He knows enough to be delicate, but instead, he simply doesn’t get there—the image on the screen now is different, from years later, showing Edith Keeler meeting with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, an American president, and Jim seems impressed, practically chortling with delight and pride as Spock tries again to redirect the conversation, to explain. The computer overloads, which Spock should have seen coming in time to stop, but he’d been unable to move, his eyes fixed on Jim. Now he stands, pulling one of the cables free as the power strip flames up, smoking.

“How bad?” Kirk says.

“Bad enough,” Spock says, not restraining himself. He looks down, sighing. Why does it seem that everything about this mission is impossible, but that none of the impossible technical tasks compare to what he needs to tell Kirk right now, what he cannot seem to say? Illogical. He steels himself.

“The President and Edith Keeler,” Jim says, repeating himself.

“It would seem unlikely, Jim,” Spock says, his voice peremptory. “A few moments ago, I read a 1930 newspaper article.”

“We know her future. Within six years from now, she’ll become very important. Nationally famous.”

“Or, Captain, Edith Keeler will die. This year.”

Kirk looks at Spock accusingly, as if he believes Spock wants it to be true.

“I saw her obituary,” he adds. “Some sort of traffic accident.”

“You must be mistaken,” Kirk says. “They both can’t be true.”

“Captain, Edith Keeler is the focal point in time we’ve been looking for.”

***

They continue to spend time together. Jim and Edith Keeler. Spock has to repair all of the circuits, spends all of the time he is not earning money for new parts sequestered in their quarters, their _flop_ , reparing each circuit one by one, replacing and reinforcing the damaged wires, diagramming simulations to run once the machine is up so that he can maximise his efficiency in case it overloads again.

Kirk is impatient, demanding. Spock has never felt so helpless in his presence, because Kirk has never looked at him like this, like he’s an obstacle to be overcome. His chest feels tight, brittle, as if it will shatter. He is working as hard as he can, and Kirk treats him as if he is slacking. Him. His own patience frays too. He works, does not stop to eat, sleep, or even meditate. There is a hollowness inside of him, growing, and he can only feed it, can only push himself until, perhaps, he can lose sight of his own existence.

“How long before we get a full answer?” Kirk demands.

“I’ll need at least two days before I dare make another attempt,” Spock tells him. It is necessary, then, to remind Kirk that the initial set of circuits had required labor, that all the circuits now must be repaired. And still Kirk… well, he speaks of Edith the way he speaks of his command, the way he speaks of the _Enterprise_ , neither of which even exists at this moment, will not exist unless this forced mission succeeds. And though it is not at the top of his mind, Spock cannot suppress the knowledge that if the mission fails, he will likely be trapped and alone on this planet of nothing but primitive humans for the rest of his existence. And Kirk has already tired of him. He wants to feel jealous of Kirk, of his ease here, but instead he feels something clamp down inside of him. He knows that this is what he deserves, that Kirk is now seeing him the way Sarek, his father, had, as the failure and disappointment he is at his core. He knows that this is what he deserves, that this is what he is, that he has been a fool to believe that Kirk could continue to look at him the way he had, the way he now looks at Edith Keeler, (though perhaps it had never been quite the same—surely he is misremembering). That he could, with all of his shortcomings, reject Kirk without explanation, and still expect the man to continue to—no. That isn’t who Kirk is. He _will_ see Spock clearly now, the haze of the spores and his fears of losing the ship, their command team, subsiding, leaving behind something else—perhaps embarassment, but certainly clarity. The friendship had been a miracle, and perhaps now he has finally destroyed it.

When the circuits are up, he runs the simulations again, again, again. But every time, in every possible world where the _Enterprise_ exists, Edith Keeler dies. He wishes he did not have to tell Kirk, did not have to convince him of this. He knows it will be an argument, a struggle, one on which they will seem to Kirk to be on opposing sides. And yes, it is hard to watch Kirk with Edith, but he does not wish to be the one to cause her pain—to cause Kirk pain. And yes, he wishes Kirk would talk to him, would speak to him with something other than utility or command or derision in mind—even to tell him that he blames him for this whole episode, that he’s angry at him for kissing back, or for pulling away, or for never speaking of it again—an admonishment or a forthright reproval would at least imply that Kirk thought him worthy of it—but he knows that this is not the time, that Kirk’s belief in him, so much more than even Pike or Starfleet could offer, had been the fluke, not this. And yes, it’s painful to watch Kirk fall in love after the incident on the deck, to see him in love right now, but he has known it would happen again eventually. It always does.

He tells him the gentlest way he knows how, divorced of emotion, couching the certainty in necessity, in strictest terms of detached history. And he can see that Jim thinks him cold, which makes him wish he might have found a different tactic. That there might have been a different tactic available to him. And of course Jim still fights. Spock knew he would. 

When Jim leaves he doesn’t say where he is going. Spock decides he will permit himself a moment, a rest—there is nothing else needed, after all. He runs the simulation three more times to assuage his guilt, his desire to please the captain even at his own expense, then he folds his hands, closes his eyes as if to meditate, but instead feels grief bubbling up inside of him, a desire to offer comfort though he does not know how, and he is aware that the Captain does not want his comfort, and why should he? 

He sees Kirk from the window and stands, tugging on his hat, and lets himself out, but in the hall Kirk calls out to Edith, and now he can hear her, hear him, the two of them together. As he emerges from the room, he turns in time to see Kirk on the stairs, Edith moving toward him, tripping, Kirk catching her, staring at her in wonder as if he’s never seen anything at all before. Spock feels ill, feels his heart pressing against his stomach, beating harder than he would have thought possible as he shuts himself back into the flop, unable to stand it. The emotion curdles inside of him. He’d recognized that look. That wonder. And yes, he is hurt, but perhaps that feeling is no error. After all, Jim is being quite selfish—he has just saved this woman who needs to die to free them, to save the world. He stamps out the jealousy he feels, the thought of his own folly only igniting his anger. How could he expect this from Jim, that Jim would sacrifice a whole world for him? Illogical. And why would he desire it? He still remembers that kiss, those soft lips, the strength and passion behind them. The regard he had thought he felt from Jim, the regard, he supposed, he had wanted to believe was there. What in all the universe was wrong with him? It was worse than anyone had ever believed.

He pushes open the door again as the Captain’s footsteps near.

“Captain, I did not plan to eavesdrop.” he says.

“No, of course you didn’t,” Kirk says. His voice is flat, dead, as if Spock’s constant blunders tire him, as if Spock is not worth engaging. Spock pushes hard on the sadness, the hurt, that wells up at the tone.

“I must point out,” he says, unable to stop himself, “that when she stumbled, she might have died right there had you not caught her.”

He knows this is not the thing to say. But he doesn’t expect the look Kirk gives him, a look of pleading. “It’s not yet time,” Kirk says. “McCoy isn’t here.”

“We’re not that sure of our facts,” Spock says. He wishes he could feel pity, empathy for Kirk, but after his momentary harshness, all he feels is protectiveness, slashed through with a kind of petty victory, as if this is simply sense that Kirk will see now, that Kirk will have to understand, will have to relent. It brings him no real pleasure, and he can see now that the discussion, which he’d initiated out of anger, is truly necessary to keep the Captain on track. “Save her, do as your heart tells you to do, and millions will die who did not die before.”

Kirk does not look at him. Spock knows that the words are difficult for this passionate man to hear, knows that he does not look at Spock because he finds him unnatural in his logic, in his unfeeling. He does not know how Spock hates these moments, these moments when he must appear insensitive, must cement his own position as aloof, separate from humans and their attachments. He waits. Usually Kirk understands, but Kirk—no, Kirk still cannot look at him. Spock casts his eyes down, secure in his knowledge, in his logic, but hollow and ashamed.

***

He, Jim, and Edith, leave at the same time, Spock going to the mission to for odd jobs while Edith and Jim go to see a film. He sees them walk off, across the street, and he wonders, lingers slightly, then—

“Spock!” Jim calls to him. Spock hears him above the din, would hear him, he thinks, above anything at all.

“What is it?” Spock says.

“McCoy,” Jim says, and before he can go on, McCoy emerges from their building too, and Spock, relieved and wishing for once to be demonstrative, to distract the doctor by taking the full force of his attention, goes to shake his hand, rather pointedly—when else might he get something this significant to hold against the doctor, who more directly than him is the cause of this whole incident?—while Kirk embraces him. _Good_ , Spock thinks, But Kirk’s embrace doesn’t last, he starts frantically across the street, ignoring Spock, shouting for him to stop. For a moment, he tries to restrain McCoy as he goes after him, then he stops. This is Jim’s battle, and if he, Spock, holds back McCoy, his friend will never forgive him; he will never have that friendship, perhaps already lost, back again. The truck speeds ahead; Edith does not see, and McCoy lunges, but Jim grasps him, arms around him, holding him for comfort even as he restrains him. Edith is struck, her limp, lovely body falls to the ground, twitches indecently. Spock looks away. 

“You deliberately stopped me, Jim. I could have saved her. Do you know what you just did?”

“He knows, Doctor, he knows.” Spock says, as Jim moves away from McCoy and braces himself against the wall, shaking. As crowds descend upon the body, Spock gently prods him, ignoring McCoy’s stare.

“We need to go now,” he says. “We ought to collect our things.”

Kirk goes along, staring, silent, hurting so deeply Spock can almost feel it without touching him. McCoy is still in need of an explanation. Spock tells him he will have it when they are aboard the ship, but that he will please limit himself to the task at hand. He leaves him with Jim and goes into the flop alone, assembles their things, disassembles the computer, gathers their Starfleet uniforms. He puts his on, takes Jim his.

“Oh, right,” Jim says, when he emerges and hands him the uniform. Without another word, he goes back inside. He is longer than Spock might have expected, but when he comes out, he is Captain Kirk. And that is all that is needed. Suddenly, they are stepping back through the stone Guardian, and there are Scotty, Uhura, the security team.

“What happened, sir?” Scotty says.

“We were successful,” Spock says, looking around as McCoy steps through the Guardian.

“Time has resumed its shape,” the Guardian says. “All is as it was before. Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway.”

“Captain, the _Enterprise_ is up there. They’re asking if we want to beam up.” Uhura smiles fondly, hopefully.

Spock knows he is the only one tempted by the Guardian’s offer. But even he would not voice it. And the memory is fresh of the fear he’d suppressed, of being trapped in Earth’s brutal past with nothing but humans for the remainder of his existence, linked by circumstance to Jim, who seems, even now, to want nothing more than to get away from him. There are other things to study, other ways to learn. The choice, for all three of them, is made. Even McCoy is uncharacteristically silent.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Kirk says. Wordlessly, they all stand in formaton to beam up. Aboard the ship, Spock watches the Captain comm the bridge to give a heading (“Take us out of here, Mr. Sulu.”), then stride off toward his quarters without offering orders to the rest of them. McCoy starts after him, but Spock grabs his arm and holds it as he dismisses security, orders Uhura and Scotty to the bridge--for them only moments have passed--then he turns to McCoy and says, “Doctor, if you please, your office?”

“Nurse Chapel has got sickbay under control, Spock. Shouldn’t the Captain go to the bridge? Or you? Is somebody going to tell me what in blazes is going on around here?”

  
“I daresay Mr. Sulu and Mr. Scott will still have the bridge under control,” Spock says, pointedly. “And I imagine you are correct about sickbay, Doctor, but I believe I have the information you desire.” McCoy tugs at his arm, still in Spock’s grasp, but Spock does not let go. “The _captain_ may be best left alone at the moment.” Spock says. McCoy glares at Spock, then he stills, and Spock lets go, nods at him, and they set off together to Sickbay.


	6. By His Side

Kirk cannot stand the sight of any of them. For two days, he comes out for Delta shift on the bridge, when he knows Spock and McCoy will be elsewhere and will not ask him questions. But it is not only the two of them he avoids, not only the two of them who make his stomach clench on site. It’s the entire crew, himself included. All of them, here now, alive, because Edith Keeler, in her time, had died so young and full of potential. A woman he had loved and all but killed. A woman who had trusted him, whose death he and Spock had... _God._ What McCoy must think. And for once, Kirk thought, he might be right.

On the third day, as he prepares to sleep—or rather, to swig Andorian brandy until he _can_ sleep, there's a knock at his door.

“Jim,” McCoy, then. Kirk doesn’t know why it disappoints him, and doesn’t know why he should have expected anything different. But Spock …Oh, he _has_ been shirking his duties, he realizes. This will have to be the last day of this.

“Jim!”

Kirk wants so badly to ignore him. Instead he presses the door open button and shouts, “Come.” He does not rise from his bed.

“Jim,” McCoy says again, as he steps into the room, looks around at the discarded cups and bottles and command tunics. Kirk has been in the same pants and undershirts for two shifts and two nights of sleep, he now realizes.

“Evening, doctor.”

“How long did you think you could avoid me by doing Delta shift?”

“Not this long," Kirk says. “That’s if I really thought about it at all, doctor. You have a gift.”

“Like you and Spock’s gift for keeping everyone else in the dark? Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Doctor,” Kirk's voice deepens, catches in his throat on the word, and the doctor sits, leans forward, and grips Kirk's forearm.

"I don’t need the whole story," he says. “Spock explained about Ms. Keeler. I just want to hear your thoughts. How are you doing? Jim, I can’t imagine what you must be going through."

“That’s right, doctor. You can’t. It was wrong, Bones. So...desperately wrong. I … killed her, as surely as if I’ve done it with my own two hands."

“No, Jim.”

“So, how do I go forward? How do I … trust … myself again? With the crew, with you or Spock, with anyone I claim to care about? What … does this make me? My duty to the _Enterprise_ and her crew, if it makes me capable of that. _Bones_?”

"Sorry, Jim. Do you know, I think you should speak with a psychiatrist. I think it might—”

“Starfleet orders,” Jim says.

“Good,” Bones says. “Then they took my recommendation.”

“I don’t appreciate—”

“Jim, listen. You did what you had to. You didn’t force her into that street. And you know as well as I do that I had no business there, none of us did. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here now, Would never have been in space to encounter the Guardian in the first place. Don’t you see that? Spock put it to me like this—Jim, the fact that you met Edith Keeler at all is proof that what happened was going to happen.”

“So now there’s no free will, Doctor? And since when do you listen to Spock?”

“When he makes sense, Jim. When he’s right. I will leave the larger questions to someone else. But you can’t let this destroy you, Jim.” McCoy sweeps the room with his gaze.

“Join Alpha shift for dinner.” He says.

“Bones—”

“Doctor's orders, Jim. You need to eat. Now, get your rest.”

***

Resentfully, at 700 hours, Kirk throws on a tunic and brushes his hair. In the recreation hall he orders his usual dinner from the replicator, then looks around for Bones. But at their usual table, Spock is waiting for him instead, his gaze fixed on Kirk from across the room, he nods in acknowledgment. He cannot deny his surprise, nor his sense of relief at finding Spock waiting for him. There is something else—anger at McCoy for the deception, though Kirk knows it was well meant and in the best interest of the ship. But he has been avoiding Spock even if, at the sight of him, he no longer wishes to, even if just knowing that Spock is there it makes it easier to nod and smile at the crewmen who greet him as they pass each other. Still, there is the memory of Spock's – well, of what he knows, of the way he had spoken of what would have to happen with Edith. And Kirk is not sure yet where he has placed his resentment at that memory, resentment that sits inside of him like an anchor. Not with Spock, he knows, but he doesn’t trust the knowledge, born out of something like desperation. Haven’t he and Spock been out of sorts long enough? 

He sits down across from his first officer. 

“I was expecting Bones,” he says.

“I surmised as much. I, too, was expecting the doctor. I am sorry to disappoint you.”

Kirk doesn’t reply.

“Spock,” he says. “We...need to talk.”

“Dr. McCoy obviously thinks so.”

“You don’t?”

“That depends, Captain, on what you believe we each need to say and hear.”

“Right.”

“I am … sorry about what happened. I understand that it was difficult.”

“For me," Kirk says. "It was difficult for me, not for you.”

“You are incorrect. But it is an understandable mistake, Jim.” Spock's gaze is heavy, holding Kirk's. And Kirk wants to understand, but he doesn’t.

“Explain.”

“I do not wish to see you suffer,” Spock says. “It brought me no pleasure to deliver that news to you, nor to watch the events play out as they must.”

Kirk stabs at a piece of flavored protein requisition, the cheerful colors and shapes seeming to mock him.

“You should not blame yourself.” Spock says, and the way he lays stress on that word implies something else, which Kirk says aloud:

“And I shouldn’t blame you either.”

“It would not be logical, no—but Captain … I know that it is not always possible to be.”

Kirk looks at him, the regret heavy in his face. None of it, really, was Spock’s fault. He realizes he is smiling mirthlessly at his friend. And yes, he thinks, that’s what Spock is, his friend, and he is lucky to have him.

“Spock … I am … sorry," he says, tears welling slightly. “God, I am so sorry. For all of it.”

“No apologies are needed.”

“Please just …”

“Then all is forgiven, Jim, and I hope … you will except my apologies as well, for my role in your pain.”

Kirk rests his hand on Spock's, and Spock does not pull away. Kirk blinks, the tears dissipating somewhat. It would not do to cry here in the mess hall, holding hands with his first officer. He removes his own hand from Spock's, sighs, and looks up at him, finding Spock watching him, his face still, but full of concern Kirk knows how to read there, read there the whole time they were on Earth, though he’d pushed the knowledge, the understanding down, engaging only with what Spock expressed – nothing. He could see it now, that he'd been angry with Spock, not because Spock had done anything wrong, but because he had wanted to be.

“Captain?”

“I haven’t been fair to you, my friend.”

“Perhaps we have both—”

“You’ve done nothing wrong,“ Kirk snaps. “Nothing, Mr. Spock. You have … all the power here. All the moral high ground.“

“I do not understand—you are already forgiven, Jim.”

Kirk shakes his head and looks down at his food, barely depleted and still extremely unappetizing. Spock's bowl is already empty. He follows Kirk's gaze, then nods. They stand together, as if by an unspoken agreement. It _is_ their night for chess.

“Shall we?” Kirk asks, and Spock nods, falling into step beside him. And Kirk thinks, if only he could learn to be satisfied, not to push, not to question, it could stay like this: the two of them, walking side by side to anywhere.

***End Part One***


	7. After Deneva

Spock detects it a few weeks before it becomes urgent, the burgeoning something in his mind, the bond with T’Pring forcing its way into his consciousness. But he marks it for awareness, does not address it—he does not know how, not yet, nor what it means.

After their return from 1930s Earth, he had kept his distance from Kirk, sure that his presence was undesirable, perhaps even unpalatable to the man he had once been so fortunate to call friend. The failure of his Captain to appear on the bridge for alpha shift or gamma shift—the shifts Spock was scheduled to work—further confirmed to him that Jim was avoiding him. McCoy, unfortunately for Spock’s mental quietude, made no such attempts.

It had been McCoy who had set up the dinner at which the Captain had apologized, from which they’d begun to resume their camaraderie again. And then they had arrived at Deneva, with all of the fanfare of a man piloting a shuttlecraft into the sun to welcome them. 

Spock had watched Jim carefully after they’d found his brother, but then had been attacked by the strange creatures himself. And the pain, like nothing he’d felt before, had acted on his nervous system, snaking deep into him, and, he thought, probably beginning to affect his mind, probably the most direct cause of the pon farr’s encroachment.

Though there was something else that he didn’t like to consider, something else that continued to play through his mind, disrupting even his meditation—though that could have been simply a symptom, rather than a cause, of his encroaching pon farr. After Deneva, where Jim’s brother and sister-in-law had died, where Spock himself had nearly died, then nearly been blinded with the cure, Spock had noticed Jim again keeping his distance, and had felt the desire to offer comfort. Though he knew he lacked certain skills, something had occurred to him since they’d reconciled, something he  _ could _ do to provide comfort, and though he was not sure his suggestion would be acceptable to his friend, he could simply make the offer and thereby demonstrate to Jim that he was, as humans often said, “there for him.”

They were in the elevator after a bridge shift when he spoke of it. Jim was speaking to him, making idle conversation of the kind that Spock generally did not like, but did not mind so much when it was Jim. Because they were close, though, Spock could feel, if he lowered his mental barriers—and he did, briefly—the sadness, the desperation, coming from his friend.

“Jim,” he said, cutting Jim off midway through a recounting of an argument Sulu and Scotty had had on the bridge in full view of everyone on the past shift.

Kirk blinked.

“Yes, Mr. Spock?”

“Are you quite all right?” He knew the answer, but he knew, too, that he had to get Kirk understand why he would make such an offer before he did it.

“Spock…” Kirk shrugged. “I think I’m about as well as anyone might expect.”

“Indeed,” Spock said. They studied each other, then Spock took a deep breath. “Captain, there are techniques Vulcans use to...alleviate strong emotions. These techniques can be helpful after traumatic events. I would like to...be of service, if I might.”

Kirk stared at him. At the time, Spock had felt self-conscious, as if Kirk had thought him overstepping. In retrospect, he sees that Jim had regarded him with the same hesitant wonder as ever, that perhaps that had been such a strong impetus for what had happened next.

“You don’t mean a meld?” Jim had looked...eager. Spock suppressed his excitement.

“No, Captain,” he had said. “Although a meld might prove instructive, should you find yourself interested in Vulcan mental discipline, however, it would not be my suggestion for you at this time.”

“I am a willing student, Mr. Spock. But I’m not sure what it is you’re proposing to teach me.”

“Not to teach you, Jim. To offer...comfort.”

“Spock,” Jim said, smiling. “I would have thought you were beyond that.”

“I am your friend, Jim,” Spock said. “I wish to help you. If the idea is not agreeable to you, then—”

“No, Spock. No. I—I’ll try anything. And I appreciate it, your thinking of me. Your willingness to...share. With me.”

Spock did not respond. When they emerged from the turbolift, approaching their quarters, he’d said.

“I believe, Jim, that we might achieve more success in my quarters.”

He had not imagined it, that Kirk’s face had reddened. He himself had swallowed, pretended not to notice, even as something inside of him had screamed that he needed to stop this before it went any further. Already he could feel himself becoming too emotional, his control slipping the way it always did with this man. But of course he had not stopped it. Of course, he had welcomed Kirk into his room, positioned Kirk on a meditation cushion, lit incense, initiated mediation. Of course he had stood, still more emotional than he would have liked, but calm enough to function, and placed his hands on Kirk’s head and face, not on the meld points exactly, and projected peace. He was careful with his barriers, but the way Kirk’s mind yielded to his made even the shallow entry needed for this purpose feel like returning home, and he could not deny his own pleasure and surprise at this sensation, this compatibility. If he were to probe deeper, he wondered, how much more of it would he find?  _ How deep did it truly run? _ But he did not, of course he did not, but the knowledge of that mind...it had set him almost aflame in a way he had not known was possible. And Kirk had opened his eyes, staring at him as if he were the vast, starry expanse of space itself. Spock was unable to meet that gaze.

“Spock,” Kirk said. “That was...thank you, my friend.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“ _ Spock _ . Is that...is it...would a meld be—?”

“A meld between us would be...inadvisable,” Spock said, his voice hoarse. Then, because he wanted the meld so much, because he told himself that with the proper barriers, they still might someday, but most of all, because Kirk looked so sorry to hear what he’d just told him, Spock added, “At this time. However, if there is still interest, we might consider it at a later date, after you have had more experience and have had time to recover from the present circumstances.”

“I very much hope so, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said. When he laid a hand on Spock’s arm, Spock had to use all of his discipline to regulate his body, just to keep still. The moment stretched, Spock thought he could bear it no longer. If Jim did not leave...

“Do you feel well enough to sleep?” Spock asked.

“I think I might,” Kirk said. He withdrew his hand, nodding. “Yes...thank you Mr. Spock.”

“You are quite...welcome, Jim.”

But it was distracting. After Jim left, Spock decided that he should possibly sleep rather than meditate that night; it was unusual that he would be so tired, but Jim’s mind…

And when he lay down, he could not sleep, instead his mind running over and over again the feel of Kirk’s mind, the way his skin had felt under Spock’s fingers, the touch of his hair, the way it had felt when he had looked up at Spock with such trust and wonder. The thought of a meld with him...it was the most tempting thing Spock had ever allowed himself to consider. And why was he entertaining the idea at all?

And now, weeks later, he finds that the thought still will not leave him, that the scent of the human still seems to linger in his quarters, has inspired him, rather irrationally, to wash all of his meditation materials to rid them of Kirk’s contamination, and yet still…

When he realizes what is happening, he struggles to replace the thoughts with thoughts of T’Pring; he accesses their bond. It soothes him, to an extent. Though he can sense T’Pring’s annoyance—no, dismay. Well, he is not offended. He has no desire to return to Vulcan, but there is nothing for it.

It makes him irritable, and he sees the trend in his overall behavior, but is barely able to suppress it. He begins to spend more time in his quarters, where he might escape notice. He assigns himself delta and gamma shifts, when there are typically fewer decisions being made on the bridge, when most of the senior crew is asleep or off duty.

He endures a visit from McCoy, who, not content to speak to him from the hallway, enters his quarters and looks around as if they are subject to his approval. The smell of the man is odious, both human and chemical, and his manner is provoking.

“Doctor,” Spock says. The doctor is staring at him as if concerned. It is infuritating.

“Spock, how are you feeling?”

“I am well, as you ”

“Spock...you haven’t logged any meals for three days now.”

“Vulcans do not require—”

“Don’t give me any of that about what Vulcans need and don’t need. Every being requires sustenance.”

“Inaccurate: the Denebrian—”

“Spock. Listen. It’s time for your annual physical checkup, so why don’t we just get it all over with at once?”

“Doctor.” Spock does not know how it happens, but he is standing so close to the doctor that the man looks truly frightened when he says, “You shall cease to pry into my personal matters, or I shall certainly break your neck.” His eyes are on the neck, a thin, spindly thing, like the rest of the doctor’s fragile human body.

McCoy takes a large step back, toward the door.

“Excuse  _ me _ , Spock,” he says. “But then, I suppose that’s logic.” The doctor pauses in front of the door, which opens for him, and he leaves in haste.

Spock feels a stab of shame, then it leaves him, as if the doctor had not come at all. Strange. This, he supposes, has now become urgent.

He reviews the log. He calculates a loss of less than three days if they divert course within the next few hours. He meditates, accessing the link between himself and T’Pring yet again, communicating across it this time, that he is coming, that he has need of her. At the thought he feels ill, and knows that he is unable to keep the sickened emotional tone from coming across to her—she will know that he has no desire to solidify their bond into permanence. He does not allow himself to reflect on why, does not allow himself to think of the captain—yes, he has been a fool where the captain is concerned. He draws a ragged breath, feels something, as of soothing, coming across the bond with T’Pring—had she been aware of this thoughts of Jim? Abruptly, clumsily, he restores his barriers, and irritable and shaking, he rises to his feet. Just then there is another knock at his door and he sighs, does not respond, but the door opens anyway, and it’s Nurse Chapel, the doctor’s besotted minion.

“What is this?” he snaps.

“Plomeek soup, Mr. Spock,” she says, her face arranged in an expression of indulgence that he finds patronizing.

“Did the doctor send you? Get out,” he says, and she backs up, the door reopening as she approaches it. He takes the soup from her, looks at it, purple and bubbling, the plomeek replicated and sliced too thin. It hits the wall across the hall, though he could not say he remembered throwing it. “Poking and prying...If I want anything from you, I’ll ask for it,” he says. The captain and McCoy are approaching, and his rage renews itself at the sight of the latter. He directs his focus to the captain—it causes a quickening inside of him, but also a gentleness.

“Captain, I should like to request a leave of absence on my home planet. On our present course you can divert to Vulcan with a loss of but two-point-eight light days.

“Spock, what the devil is this all about,” the captain says, staring at him. He is not looking at him with tenderness, or wonder. He is looking at him as if he is a stranger. McCoy is looking at him with fear.

“I have made my request, Captain” he says. “All I require from you is that you answer it. Yes or no?”

The captain gestures, Spock turns and lets the man follow him into his quarters.

“All right, Spock,” he says, “Let’s have it.”

“It is undignified for a woman to play servant to a man who is not hers,” Spock says. And he is not sure where the words come from. Kirk raises his eyebrows but says,

“I’m more interested in your request for shore leave. In all the years—”

“You have my request, Captain. Will you grant it or not?”

“In all the years that I’ve known you, you’ve never asked for a leave of any sort. In fact, you’ve refused them. Why now?”

“Captain, surely I have enough leave time accumulated?”

“Agreed. But that isn’t the question, is it? If there’s a problem of some sort—illness in the family—”

“No, nothing of that sort,” Spock says. Jim is looking at him with such concern. What would it feel like, he wonders, to tell him, to watch Jim’s face change, to watch him, like McCoy, learn to feel fear or suspicion toward him? No, he cannot tell Jim about this. Not until it is done, and T’Pring is his bride. He can feel her there at the other end of the bond, this time retreating as he nudges it, realizing only too late that he has transmitted across it his longing for another, for this glowing soul standing in front of him now.

“Well, then since we’re headed for Altair VI, and since the shore leave facilities there are excellent—”

“No, I must! I wish to take my leave on Vulcan!” Spock says.

“Spock, I’m asking you—what’s wrong?”

“I need rest. I’m asking you to accept that answer.”

Kirk studies him a moment. He looks desperate, as desperate as Spock feels. He taps the comm button.

“Bridge: helm.”

“Yes, Captain,” comes Sulu’s voice.

“Alter course to Vulcan. Increase speed to warp 4.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Spock says.

Kirk looks up, smiles slightly. Spock cannot believe his kindness. “I suppose most of us overlook the fact that even Vulcans aren’t indestructible,” he says.

“No,” Spock says. “We’re not.”

  
  



	8. Madness

Kirk is surprised when he gets the comm—in spite of his request, they’re to proceed directly to Altair. It hardly seems fair, but there you have it.

“I quite understand,” Spock says. But Kirk can see something under that thinner-than-usual veneer, something lost. Later, after his bridge shift is completed, he comms Chekov.

“Mr. Chekov, how late will we arrive for the ceremonies if we increase speed to maximum and divert to Vulcan just long enough to drop off Mr. Spock?”

“I don’t understand, Captain,” says Chekov’s voice. So Kirk repeats himself.

“We’re _on_ course for Vulcan, Captain,” Chekov explains. “As Mr. Spock ordered.”

 _What is happening?_ Kirk thinks. He stands, paces a moment. Whatever it is that Spock doesn’t want to talk about—is he—no, he wouldn’t mutiny. He wouldn’t do any of this without a reason. Kirk sighs. He will simply have to talk with him. Spock will tell him. Spock will explain. He has to. He strides down the hall, ensigns and yeomen exchanging glances and getting out of his way when they see his determination. On the bridge, he summons Spock and in the turbolift he asks him again what’s happening, but Spock, who seems to be in a kind of angry trance, says he doesn’t remember diverting course, says he will not answer any furhter questions.

“Lock me away, Captain,” he says. “I do not wish to be seen.”

Kirk feels his heart breaking. But there’s something else: fear.

“I order you to report to Sickbay,” he says. 

“Sickbay?”

“Complete examination. McCoy’s waiting.”

He watches as Spock steps off the lift, like he’s in a trance. He thinks to go with him, but he knows Spock will resist the doctor, will resist sickbay as it is, and perhaps whatever it is, he doesn’t want to tell Kirk in particular. Crowding him will only make it worse. Kirk returns to his quarters, sits at his desk, trying to read the Altair 6 briefing Starfleet had supplied, but he is too distracted to focus, and sooner than he’d expected, McCoy storms in, not waiting for Kirk to tell him to come in.

“Jim, you’ve got to get Spock to Vulcan,” he says.

Kirk looks up, annoyed. If that was all the doctor had to add to the conversation. “Bones, I will, I will,” he says. He gets to his feet. “As soon as this mission is completed—”

“No.” Bones grabs his arm, his fingers tight, digging in. Kirk turns and faces him, alarmed now. “Now—right away! If you don’t get him to Vulcan within 8 days at the outside, he’ll die. He’ll die, Jim!”

“Why...must he die? Why within eight days?” Jim demands.

But the doctor cannot say.

“You say you’re convinced he knows what it is.”

“He does. And he’s as tightlipped about it as an Aldebaran shellmouth.”

Jim turns and heads for the door. “No use to ask him, Jim. He won’t talk,” Bones says. But Kirk ignores him. Bones, well, of course Bones wouldn’t understand; of course Spock wouldn’t tell Bones. But Spock will tell him; he can get Spock to tell him. He has to, because otherwise—he can’t think about what it would mean otherwise.

At Spock’s door, he angrily presses the button for entrance, with half a mind to override it entirely.

“Come,” Spock says, his voice uncharacteristically soft, almost defeated. Spock rises as Kirk enters, but he looks tired, weak, and Kirk waves a hand, “Stay,” he says, and Spock sinks into the chair, head bowed.

“McCoy has given me his medical evaluation of your condition,” Kirk says. “He says you're going to die unless something is done. What?” Spock hesitates, Kirk studies him as if his appearance might yield some new information, but of course it doesn’t. “Is it something only your planet can do for you?” Spock reaches for his padd, and Kirk sees his hand shaking. “Spock!” Kirk says, shocked by the violent, uncontrolled motion. He reaches for his hand, unthinking, grasping his friend’s wrist, aware that he’s staring, that he’s perhaps being rude. Finally, Spock jerks away from him, looking down again, ashamed. Too much emotion on display, perhaps. He will have to try a different tactic, will have to be less emotional. He swallows. “You’ve been called the best first officer in the fleet. That’s an enormous asset to me. If I have to lose that first officer, I want to know why.”

“It is a thing no out-worlder may know except those very few who have been involved,” Spock says. “A Vulcan understands, but even we do not speak of it among ourselves. It is a deeply personal thing. Can you see that, Captain, and understand?”

“No, I do not understand. Explain. Consider that an order.”

Spock looks tortured. “Captain, there are some things which transcend even the discipline of the service.”

“Would it help if I told you that I'll treat this as totally confidential?” 

“It has to do with biology.”

“Biology as in reproduction? Well, there's no need to be embarrassed about it, Mister Spock. It happens to the birds and the bees. 

“The birds and the bees are not Vulcans, Captain. If they were, if any creature as proudly logical as us were to have their logic ripped from them as this time does to us. How do Vulcans choose their mates? Haven't you wondered?”

Of course he has. He hesitates, almost afraid to answer, to hear what will come next.

“I guess the rest of us assume that it's done quite logically,” Kirk says, not bothering to turn to look at Spock, who hasn’t met his eyes for most of the discussion. It’s a long time before Spock speaks.

“No. No. It is not. We shield it with ritual and customs shrouded in antiquity.” Spock sighs. “You humans have no conception. It strips our minds from us. It brings a madness which rips away our veneer of civilisation. It is the pon farr,” he says. The words sound distasteful in his mouth, as if saying them is disgusting to him. “The time of mating. There are precedents in nature, Captain. The giant eelbirds of Regulus Five, once each eleven years they must return to the caverns where they hatched. On your Earth, the salmon. They must return to that one stream where they were born, to spawn or die in trying.”

Kirk frowns. Surely it can’t be anything so animalistic, so instinctual...“But you're not a fish, Mister Spock. You're—”

“No. Nor am I a man. I'm a Vulcan. I'd hoped I would be spared this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch up with us, and we are driven by forces we cannot control to return home and take a wife. Or die.”

Kirk freezes, but Spock looks so ashamed, so desperate. No wonder Spock had pulled away from him, had avoided him, after that night on the deck. If he finds sexuality so distateful, if he will even take a wife against his will...Kirk shoves away the thought of Spock, married, tied forever to someone else. But perhaps it’s for the best.

“I haven’t heard a word you’ve said. I’ll get you to Vulcan somehow.”

***

When Kirk is gone, Spock feels that he could die now, willingly. There is a part of him that hopes the pon farr does kill him. There will be no recovering from this humiliation, no way to salvage his friendship, if that is what it is, with Kirk. Even if Kirk does not find him too alien, too distasteful, he will never be free, not with T’Pring in his mind, along with the fear of the pon farr’s return. Oh, how he’d hoped his human ancestry would at least spare him this.

The next few hours, he tries to function, perhaps does so effectively—but he passes the time in a kind of cloud, barely aware of what he is doing. There is a bubble of grief in him when he thinks of Kirk, of the way he’d looked, careful and deliberate, “I haven’t heard a word you’ve said…” He did still care, but a kind of pitying, impersonal care, he thought, nothing like the longing he’d sensed from him before. He truly had lost his chance—if not then, then certainly now.

It was odd, because he hadn’t considered it a chance at all before, hadn’t considered that he’d ever had the potential for anything with Kirk, yet now it feels like something he’d had within grasp and has now lost forever.

It does occur to him that perhaps the pon farr is making him illogical, that perhaps the pon farr is causing him to see possibilities where none exist, causing him to elevate his emotions, especially desire. But he cannot dwell long on logic. He can feel a kind of fire starting in him, a longing he cannot express. They are entering Vulcan space, but when he thinks of beaming down to the planet alone, leaving the Captain onboard the ship, he feels a sick swooping in his stomach. He does not want to be apart from him. It’s this longing that drives him into the hall, and when he steps into the hallway, he finds Kirk and McCoy approaching from sick bay, no doubt discussing him. He tamps down his annoyance and embarrassment. The three of them step into the turbolift together.

“It’s obvious that you have surmised my problem, Doctor,” Spock says. He cannot suppress a certain vitriol as he adds, “My compliments on your insight.” His heart pounds. Captain, there is a thing that happens to Vulcans at this time. Almost an insanity, which you would no doubt find distasteful.”

“Will I?” Kirk says. McCoy rolls his eyes, but Spock ignores him. “You’ve been most patient with my kinds of madness,” Kirk adds.

“Then,” Spock says, hesitating slightly, “would you beam down to the planet’s surface and stand with me? There is a brief ceremony.”

Kirk looks skeptical. “Is it permitted?” he says. 

Spock does not explain that it is an ancient custom, hardly adhered to any longer, something from the days of warrior Vulcans for whom taking a bride felt so unfamiliar that it was best to do even this with comrades-in-arms by their sides. Instead, he says, feeling petulant, “It is my right. By tradition, the male is accompanied by his closest friends.”

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Kirk says. And he sounds somehow chastened. Spock hates the tone, does not know what to do to fix it, how he can have hurt Kirk, even now, even extending him this honor. Though Kirk would not understand, he supposes, would, perhaps feel rejected even, if he still...but of course he doesn’t. Spock feels ridiculous to have thought that Kirk could still desire him, even after everything. This is madness indeed.

“I also request McCoy accompany me,” Spock adds.

“I shall be honored, sir,” McCoy says, gamely.

And now Jim smiles. Spock ignores his disappointment. He reminds himself that it is not a fitting thing to acknowledge.

Spock remembers T’Pring’s image on the bridge comm screen, remembers the three of them beaming down to coordinates he’d entered, remembers that he’d tried to offer some narration, some explanation about the lands around them—S'chn T'gai land as they’d approached his family’s place of koon-ut kal-if-fee. But the last thing he remembers is Kirk, buried somewhere deep inside of the plak tow, Kirk’s face stands out as if it glows, and he begs T’Pau not to let him fight. He sees his face in his memory, but it is his own words that he clings to, when the madness has ended. Afterwards, it is the only thing that gives him hope: he had tried to stop it.

***

Kirk is dazzled. There is no other word for it, and he does not try to suppress it. There is no one to see but McCoy and Spock, and Spock is...well, he’s not himself.

The land is stunning, the sky a stark orange, the land bare, its features grand and terrifying. Kirk finds himself reflecting on William Blake’s philosophy of the beautiful and the sublime, finds that this land is a perfect match for the latter. And Spock narrates, quietly, walking beside Kirk. His speech is slightly disjointed, compared to his usual standard, but he is still coherent, and Kirk gathers that this land is familiar to him, the land where he spent much of his childhood. “What you will see is called the koon-ut kal-if-fee,” Spock explains.

“What?”

“Marriage or challenge,” Spock says. “Ancient Vulcan was very different from our modern society. We were a warrior planet, and demonstrated our strength to gain the right to mate. Generally...generally ancient Vulcans had to kill in order to so demonstrate.” Kirk smiles at him, trying to demonstrate his interest, but Spock will not look at him. He goes quiet as they approach a spindly natural bridge formation and he steps out ahead of the two of them. When they come out into a kind of clearing, Spock speaks again, explains that this is his family’s place of koon-ut kal-if-fee. He strikes a kind of gong and they wait. 

They hear them before they see them, a kind of procession, carrying an older woman, whose bearing is as regal as if she were a queen.

Kirk’s heart surges as he recognizes T’Pau. He’d read of her years ago, as a child, and had been impressed with her strength of character when she had petitioned the Federation to refuse to grant membership to the brutal but wealthy Plavians.

“Bones,” he said, excitedly. “You know who that is? T’Pau. The only person to ever turn down a seat on the Federation Council.”

“T’Pau?” Bones said. “Officiating at Spock’s wedding.”

“He never mentioned that his family was this important.” He wouldn’t, Kirk thinks, even as he says it, and there’s a warm surge, soft feeling with a bladed edge of sadness, but he doesn’t dwell on that.

He can be happy for Spock, for this, for his friend to have his needs met, for his friend to have the life he wants, deserves, even if Kirk does not play the role in it he wishes. At this point, because Spock needs him to, he is happy to place his own needs aside. And he sees T’Pring, and she’s beautful, radiant...no less than his friend deserves. And now, truthfully, Kirk is—there is no other word for it—dazzled.

Perhaps that is why he volunteers, even knowing the history of the koon-ut kal-if-fee that Spock has just told him. Perhaps that is why he nearly jumps at the chance to take part, despite everything that, in retrospect, should have warned him away—not just to impress T’Pau, not just to help Spock, but to give himself some role in this, this ceremony that by its very essence, excludes him, and so to wind himself more inextricably into the fabric of Spock’s life.

As his breath refuses to come, as he feels the life draining from him, he thinks to himself that if it is what Spock needed, it was worth it. He can die with no regrets. Or at least, he thinks, as he sees Spock’s crazed eyes on his without recognition, with only one.

***

Spock felt something give way in him even before he comes to, a kind of surge, as if the burning of his blood, the arousal, has reached a peak. He looked into the face of his captain beneath him and felt a roiling anger; that was the first step on the path back to consciousness. The next is the determination it causes, for him to finish the task at hand. The final step is the death of this man at his hands, and now he is looking at Jim before him, dead, and the worst part is that he remembers killing him, remembers wanting to, even as now the idea of how that was possible is beyond him. He stares until McCoy is there.

“Get your hands off him,” McCoy says. “He’s finished. He’s dead.”

Spock feels something inside of him that is also finished, dead, at these words. But not yet. First he must see that protocols are observed, that Kirk’s body is respected, honored, that he himself meets a fitting end—he will ensure that he is stripped of honors, then will die by his own hand—he has already identified a simple method that and should keep his body clean and easy to dispose of; he cannot retreat into emotion now. Such acts would be cowardly and un-Vulcan.

He confronts T’Pring, but it is without real interest. Nothing particularly matters anymore. He only wants to understand. He cannot blame T’Pring for his own actions, cannot blame T’Pring for seeking to escape her circumstances via the only route open to her. Despite the truth of his words to her, he can understand not wishing to be married to him, could give a list of reasons that is probably longer than T’Pring’s. Especially now.

“Stand by to beam up,” he says into his communicator. _This is it_ , he thinks. “Live long, T’Pau, and prosper.”

“Live long and prosper, Spock.”

“I shall do neither,” he says. “For I have killed my captain, and my friend.”

***

The _Enterprise_ , without Jim. The temperature seems colder, the air too thick to breathe. Spock reflects, logically, that this could simply be the difference between the air aboard the ship and the air he’s just breathed, the air of Vulcan, but he knows there is more to it, though he’s walked the ship alone many times, and logically there can be no difference now. 

“Mr. Spock?” Scott says. But Spock does not stop, does not greet him, but starts down the hall to sick bay. Strange to think that McCoy is the only person he has now, and unbidden, the image of his mother comes to mind. But no. The grief will be hers when she learns of his death and why. It is not for him to grieve for her grief. That is illogical. And it is not for him to tell her of what he has done, what he is planning. That will only cause her deeper grief.

He strides into Sickbay, feeling like the robot McCoy has always said he is.

“Doctor,” he says. “I shall be resigning my commission immediately, of course,” he says.

“Spock, I—” the doctor begins, and he does not seem as angry as he had on Vulcan. Spock fortifies his barriers. Why should McCoy choose now of all times to treat him with kindness?

“So I would appreciate your making the final arrangements.”

“Spock I—”

“Doctor, please let me finish. There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty. I intend to offer no defence. Furthermore, I shall order Mister Scott to take immediate command of this vessel—”

“Don’t you think you had better check with me first?”

The sun, all of its light and heat, in a voice, Spock’s heart explodes as he turns and there is the man, his smile a beacon, he, _him_. A moment—Spock thinks he has gone mad.

“Captain!” he says. And he reaches out, catches the man’s arms, warm and firm under his hands. And it’s true. It’s real. He’s real. “Jim!” He does not realize he is smiling until the nurse and the doctor exchange a look, then he pulls back, adjusts his uniform—God, he needs to shower, change.

“I am...pleased...to see you, Captain. You seem uninjured. I am at something of a loss to understand it, however.”

“Blame McCoy. That was no tri-ox compound he shot me with. He slipped in a neural paralyser. Knocked me out, simulated death.” Kirk says.

So the doctor had known. Spock will make note of this for later.

“Indeed,” he says.

“Spock, what happened down there? The girl? The wedding?”

“Ah, yes,” Spock says. “The girl.” An odd way of referring to T’Pring, he thinks. But that’s McCoy. “Most interesting. When I thought that I had killed the captain, I found that I had lost all interest in T’Pring. The madness was gone.” He does not describe the odd surge he’d felt in combat, the sense of completion he’d had just before Jim was gone—or he’d thought Jim was gone. The doctor looks like he wants to say something, something Spock will not like, but the intercom chimes. Once the issue of Starfleet orders has been sorted—T’Pau apparently has enthralled the captain to some degree—the doctor turns back to Spock and says, “ There's just one thing, Mister Spock. You can't tell me that when you first saw Jim alive that you weren't on the verge of giving us an emotional scene that would have brought the house down.”

“Merely my quite logical relief that Starfleet had not lost a highly proficient captain,” Spock says.

“Yes, Mr. Spock, I quite understand,” Kirk says. And he looks amused, but Spock doesn’t mind because he’s alive, and more than that—his eyes are soft. This man had died—or at least they had both thought he had—at Spock’s hands, and now, even so, he is looking at Spock in that way, the way he reserves for him...the way he had looked at Spock that night on the observation deck.

“Thank you, Captain.” he says.

“Of course, Mr. Spock, your reaction was quite logical,” McCoy adds.

“Thank you, Doctor.” He and Kirk exchange glances, and start to head out.

“In a pig’s eye!” McCoy exclaims. Spock turns and stares at him, becoming aware that Kirk is standing beside him when he says, “Come on, Mr. Spock, let’s go mind the store.”

But he doesn’t lead him toward the bridge. Instead, they walk toward their quarters, and Kirk suggests what Spock needs—that they take some time to recover.

“Bridge at 0800?” Kirk says.

“Agreed,” Spock says.

“That should...give us time.” Kirk says. Spock raises an eyebrow in curiosity, but there is nothing forthcoming. Away from the doctor, Kirk looks tired. They walk in a companionable silence, and Spock studies the man again, still finding no signs that he has any lasting injury. He hears Jim in the showers, and attempts meditation, but is unable to achieve a simple kohltor.


	9. Anywhere, Anything

Altair is as Kirk had expected: The entire crew in dress uniforms for the ceremony, then the reception for the top brass. He and Spock and the department heads of their ship and the other two Starfleet vessels. And after the ceremony, shore leave for the rest of the three crews. Kirk did not bother to hide his jealousy. Altair VI’s natural waterways were supposed to be beautiful, and the culture and night life were both legendary.

“The one planet where we’d both enjoy shore leave and neither of us can go,” Kirk says to Spock, as they make their way across the reception to shake hands with the president. Spock has been more attentive than usual, even, stationing himself just behind Kirk the entire evening, as if watching over him. He’s been calm and polite as ever, but less talkative. And even now, he does not respond with a quirked eyebrow, with a follow-up question, or even a denial of desiring shore leave. But only says, “Most unfortunate.”

Kirk waits a beat, but there’s nothing else.

“Would you come with me?” he said.

“Captain?”

“If we had shore leave here. Would you...beam down with me?”

“Illogical, Captain. We are already here, and not under those circumstances.”

“Spock...”

There’s a pause, protracted, and Kirk wonders why it feels so long, why Spock’s face has twisted in discomfort; instinctively, he shoots a hand out and places it on Spock’s arm.

“Jim,” Spock says, looking down. “Please.”

Kirk frowns. Slowly, he withdraws his hand, but Spock still does not move.

“Jim,” Spock says again, and when he speaks again, it sounds as if the words have been wrenched from him. “You know I would accompany you. I would accompany you anywhere. You have only to ask.”

Kirk wants to accept the words, wants to smile at his friend and take his hand. But that can’t be what  _ he _ wants—he sounds like it’s torture for him to say what he’s said. He thinks of him, only a day before, his whole body shaking. He might have died. Kirk had never been more afraid in his life, not even when Spock stood over him with the lirpa, not even when he believed himself to be dying at his hands.

“Spock, are you all right? Recovered, I mean?”

Spock raises his eyes, dark and burning.

“Jim, I—I believe the pon farr is over. But there is no precedent for… Please try to understand.”

“I am trying, Spock. But you’re not giving me a lot to go on.”

“My apologies, Captain. Perhaps...we—I might make my niceties and then excuse myself quietly? Temporarily of course.”

“No one will notice if we both leave,” Kirk says, shortly. The crowd was massive, with a delegation from the other three inhabited planets in the Altair system, plus one from every Federation planet, and the three other Constitution-class starships in the area. If Spock needs quiet, if Spock needs  _ him _ —he will have both. “We’ll say hello, and we’ll go. They can’t very well expect us to spend all our time just milling around. We’re in command of a starship after all and I can’t—”

“I cannot ask you to—”

“You don’t have to,” Kirk says. “If you need to go now, you can. If anyone asks, I’ll say I dismissed you. And I’ll come and find you after.”

“No, Jim. I do not...wish to leave your side.” The words hit Kirk, shake him, his very foundation, but he knows better than to show it to Spock, who must have fought hard to say them. For a moment there’s silence, and Kirk isn’t sure if he should pretend he hasn’t heard, but he thinks about those weeks after the Observation Deck, thinks about Spock offering him comfort that day on the turbolift. What it must have cost him then, too, to affirm their friendship. And then Kirk thinks of Vulcan, the heat, the combat, the feeling of the life draining away from him at Spock’s hands, the way his friend must have felt to believe he’d killed Kirk. No, they’ve both made sacrifices. He isn’t risking losing him again, isn’t afraid to meet Spock where he is,  _ wherever _ that is.

“Then don’t. Stay...with me, Spock.” Too much? Kirk wonders. His heart pounds.

Spock swallows visibly. Kirk touches his hand again, instinctively, reprimanding himself already for going too far, but Spock shudders at the touch without pulling away. Is Kirk imagining this? Is he going mad? What exactly  _ is _ happening here?

“Spock,” he begins, his voice hesitant, but it is as if Spock does not hear him.

“Thank you, Captain,” he says. “I shall.”

***

His emotional controls are in place, but there is still something...Spock actually feels his heart pound as they approach the president. Spock feels protective of Jim, of his person, intensely aware of his body, smaller and frailer than his own, as he walks just behind him. He remembers the feeling of Jim writhing beneath him, the feeling of the life draining from Jim’s body, and the rage he’d felt toward him, the sense of victory, and then the horror.

The captain has reached the front of the queue. He has said something to the new president of Altair VI that has caused the older woman to roar with laughter. Now Jim is waving him over, he is pleased when she offers the ta’al.

“I am pleased to meet you, Commander,” she says. “I was just expressing to your captain that the  _ Enterprise _ and two of you in particular are legendary—the only Vulcan currently on active duty in Starfleet, I believe? And a half-Vulcan?”

“Indeed. I am the only Vulcan on active duty aboard the  _ Enterprise _ , but that is hardly a mark of notoreity. There are other Vulcans in Starfleet, most of them serving aboard the Intrepid.”

“Well,” she says. “I suppose I’ve been misinformed.” She winks, and Spock, baffled, glances at Jim, who laughs; he is standing so close that his shoulder bumps into Spock’s arm. The president notices it; Spock sees, too, that she notices when Jim does not apologize or move away.

“Well, President Aa’lok,” Jim says, “I see you have many other people waiting to greet you. We’ll let you get on with it.” Jim sticks out a hand again. “You have my congratulations and my vote of confidence.”

“Thank you,” she says.

“I agree,” Spock adds. “I too am confident that you will bring about a new era of stability and prosperity for the region.”

“Best wishes to you, too, commander. Should I offer the ta’al again or shake your hand as well? Only, I observed you earlier, in contact with your captain. Perhaps you are more human than I had surmised?” The words strike the open place in Spock’s armor, the question that has been tormenting him since he awoke to find the captain dead at his hands. There is a beat of silence more than there should have been before he responds.

“The ta’al was welcome and appropriate.” Spock raises his hand in the gesture. “Live long and prosper, President. And I extend the wishes to your planet as well.”

“Peace and long life,” she says. “And I extend that to the two of you.”

Spock leaves the encounter feeling on edge, almost as he had felt standing before T’Pau. And as they turn away from President Aa’lok, he feels Jim’s hand against his upper back, the touch tender and urgent, or perhaps that is only what he wants from it.

“Come on,” Jim says. “Let’s get out of here.” 

And it’s back, the feeling of his heart pounding, the desperate sense of attachment, of following Jim as if the two of them are tied together, as if nothing must be allowed to separate them. He hates himself even as he feels it, knows that it, not logic, is driving him, and thinks over and over again of his hands on his lifeless captain. The man--this beautiful man--had been dead at his hands, a death outside of his control, but caused, nevertheless, by him. Why does he think now that he can protect him? Why does he think now, that he deserves this man’s care and attention? He does not deserve it, but he has it, and he cannot bring himself to let it go.

The halls of the convention center are crowded, lined with security and wayward revelers. Kirk does not slow down until they are on the turbolift with two women, both of them clearly enebriated, one of them with her head on the other’s shoulder, giggling slightly. They are all heading to the same floor, so Kirk and Spock do not speak until they reach their quarters, their two rooms next to each other here as they are on board the  _ Enterprise _ . Kirk opens his own room, and beckons Spock inside.

“So, Spock,” Kirk says. “Tell me what’s happening.” Kirk is sitting on the bed; the look he wears is  _ inviting _ . Does he...know...what he is doing? Spock stands by the door, uncertain, his body...it feels almost like he burns.

“Spock?”

Spock moves further into the room. He inhales, exhales. Inhales, exhales. Yes, he will have to explain.

“It is not clear to me, has never been clear to me, how I might experience the pon farr. As you know, I am only half Vulcan. I had hoped to avoid it entirely, and when that proved not to be the case, I had considered myself to have had unprecedented good fortune when the madness subsided after only the...the combat. But now, even though it is clear that the madness has come to an end, I find I…”

“There’s still something you need?” Kirk says. He sounds almost sad, resigned. The tone tears at something in Spock, and he moves closer.

“Sit down?” Kirk asks. And there’s a chair at a desk near the bed that Spock could take, could turn around to face Kirk, but instead he sits on the bed beside Kirk, and Kirk’s whole body tenses, just for a moment, like he’s afraid. Spock holds himself very still but does not move away.

“Captain,” he says, “It was not my intention to frighten you.”

“No, of course not. I’m not...I’m not  _ frightened _ , Spock. Just…”

“I hurt you,” Spock says, quietly. “On Vulcan. I am sorry, Jim. Please know that I would never willingly—”

“I  _ do _ know that, Spock. I have no regrets about anything that happened on Vulcan, or about my decision to go down there with you. I’d do it again.”

There is silence. Spock looks at this man, so sincere in his expression of care and trust. It takes him a moment to accept that, and he tries to figure out how to begin. He does not realize that he is staring until Kirk speaks.

“Spock, I—I’m not sure what’s happening right now.” Kirk says.

“Jim.”

Kirk looks up at him, and there’s that look again, the wonder, but there  _ is _ something else, whatever Kirk says: there  _ is _ fear there, put perhaps not of him... He raises a hand, placing it gently, questioningly, on Kirk’s face, and though his barriers are still in place, Kirk gasps. He removes his hand immediately.

“Jim, forgive me. I will not contact your mind without your consent.”

“Spock, I’m only surprised. I’m not...Listen to me, I’m not afraid of you.”

“Still—I—”

“What do you need? Something from me?”

“I want to...touch your mind.” 

Jim looks skeptical. He tilts his head, frowning. “Before, you said you didn’t think it was wise.”

“I believe the question of wisdom may already be in the past,” Spock says. “Please, Jim. It would be only a moment, a quick touch only. Just to ascertain . . . I will not access your memories, your direct thoughts . . . only impressions, feelings.”

“Feelings?” Jim swallows. 

“It is deeply personal,” Spock says. “You are under no obligation to say yes.”

“It’s not something you could just ask me?”

“It is not. It is perhaps not something...a human would understand.”

Jim is quiet for a moment. Then he says. “All right.” 

“Jim?” 

Jim reaches out, grasps Spock’s hand and lifts it to his face.

“I welcome your touch. Take as long as you need.”

Spock hesitates. “You do not know what you suggest.”

“I trust you,” Jim says. “And I’ll give you whatever you need. Even if it’s not...what you want.”

“I do not understand,” Spock withdraws his hand again. “I have just stated—”

Jim shakes his head. He reaches again for Spock’s hand. “I’ll give you anything you need,” he repeats.

  
  



	10. T'hy'la

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little NSFW, people.

Spock’s fingers brush his face, the meld points letting his mind in, brushing against Kirk’s. They have not done this before, he realizes. He had thought it would be like before, the light, soothing touch Spock had used before that had left him wanting more. This was that  _ more _ . This was a touch that started light, gentle, but moved gradually deeper, so deep that Kirk could feel himself gasping, calling out, could feel Spock, a kind of desire he recognized as Spock’s, that must have been Spock’s because it was not something he’d ever felt before, overlaying his own. He remained aware of his own body, but felt Spock’s too, and the sensation was overwhelming, impossible to sort out. He cannot tell what Spock is feeling, thinking, only feels himself...opening, yielding to Spock. But it is not unpleasant. He feels his own sweat starting, his heart pounding, his body stiffening, his penis swelling, and he cannot control— _ oh, god! _ He cried out at the pleasure. But  _ oh—no. _ What would Spock think? Oh, no. No, no, no.  _ I’m sorry, Spock _ , he tries to communicate his remorse across the meld. He feels tears start and somehow he is unable to control them, just as he had been unable to control his arousal.

_ No, Jim _ , Spock says through the meld.  _ Do not be ashamed. _

It’s the last coherent thought he senses from Spock, and it’s like a ripple, a wave of comfort much deeper than what Spock had offered when his brother had passed away. But then something goes terribly wrong.

The sensation is like heartbreak, like the moment when the person you love tells you that they are leaving, the moment when the person you love steps into a transporter and beams to a starship bound for Antares or somewhere still farther, and you watch their molecules dissipate and know they will never return. Kirk surfaces from the meld crying, and he has no memory of tears starting, or of the mourning beginning—it is only that he feels it, and it is deep inside of him as if he always has. They’d finally been close, for just a moment, it had been the way it ought always to be between them, and now they’re separate again, and he’s bereft. And before him, on the floor, is Spock, unmoving, his eyes closed, his body sprawled awkwardly. Kirk pushes his grief aside; he has no time for it.

Spock is breathing, his heart is beating. Jim cradles his head, locates his communicator.

“Doctor,” he says into it.

“Jim?” McCoy’s voice is almost relieved. He’s still at the event, probably desperate for a way out. “Please tell me you’re having a medical emergency right now that requires my presence.”

Spock writhes, drawing Jim’s eye downward to where he lies on the floor. Another pang of relief—is he waking? And then he notices that Spock’s erection is...well, it’s there.  _ Do not be ashamed _ , Spock had said. But he knows that Spock would be, for the doctor to see him like this, to find the two of them together... He glances at the luggage in the corner. There’s a tricorder in Spock’s bag.

“Jim!” McCoy says. “Should I have Scotty get a fix on your location?  _ Speak _ , dammit!”

“No. Doctor, stand by. Kirk out.” Kirk says, and terminates transmission.

Spock stirs again before Jim gets the tricorder out of the bag. He is sitting up when Jim turns around. “I apologize,” he says.

“What happened?” Jim demands. “What the hell was that?”

“It was not my intention.” Spock stands and stalks to the door.

Jim follows him, “Spock!”

Spock turns to face him, his expression unreadable. He doesn’t meet Kirk’s eye.

“I’m sorry,” Kirk says again. “You were...in my mind. I couldn’t hide anything.”

“Jim,” Spock says, and now his eyes rivet onto Kirk’s. “your reaction was not something I had anticipated, but I assure you no apologies are needed.” He reaches out, his hand again on Kirk’s face, but not on the meld points, a gentle, soft touch...a  _ caress? _

“Spock,” he whispers. He steps closer. “ _ Spock? _ Can you...outside of pon farr...I mean…Is it something you...Do have...desires?” Spock’s expression is open, almost innocent.

“Yes, Jim.” Spock says simply.

Jim gulps. “Spock,” he says again. “I’ve never wished so much that I could get a read on a situation.”

“You are wondering if you ought to repeat the actions you undertook months ago on the observation deck.”

Kirk looks away. “Am I so transparent?”

“Jim, you forget that I am a touch telepath.”

“Spock—”

“But the answer to both questions is yes.”

There is a long silence. Kirk stares. Spock steps toward him, and Kirk lunges, his arms wrapping around Spock, his lips crashing into the skin of Spock’s neck, smelling him, a smell of soap and cloves and frankencense, his face brushing against the satin of his dress uniform, the silk of his fine, well-groomed hair, tousling against his cheek. He feels Spock groan against him, and his hand strong and careful on the back of Kirk’s head, turning it so their lips meet, and Spock is kissing him so forcefully that Kirk feels almost deprived of agency. He snakes his arms down, feeling Spock’s body against his, lean and muscled and aroused. He slides his hands under Spock’s dress uniform, feeling the hot, dry skin there. He lets out a ragged breath.

“Is this...what you want?” he says. “It’s not just the pon farr?”

“I do not...I am unsure.” He feels Spock stiffen, then go slack against him, all the urgency gone from him. Kirk presses his eyes closed, sighs.

“I do not know, Jim,” Spock repeats. His voice is almost stoic, but there’s a plaintive edge there that Kirk knows how to hear. He takes another deep breath.

“OK,” Kirk says. “We can just...take a break.” He takes his hand from beneath the dress tunic and gingerly rests it on Spock’s clothed back; he starts to pull away, but Spock’s hold tightens on him. 

“I do not desire for us to be apart,” Spock says.

“Then stay with me.” Kirk says, for the second time that day. He does not move away from Spock, though his heart pounds, his body strains.

“Jim, I am sorry,” Spock says. His voice is strangled. “But tonight my body and my mind...feel almost foreign to me. I am unable to...I apologize. Jim, I cannot.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Kirk says. He stands back, holding on only to Spock’s hands.

“Perhaps…” Spock says, “you would not be averse to another meld?”

“Another meld? The last one nearly killed you? I felt it...like you’d died when it broke.” Spock looks confused a moment.

“Ah,” Spock says. “No. I simply was not...prepared for the depth of our connection. My exit was...extemporaenous. Premature. Jim, please know this...there can be no mere dalliance between us.”

“Oh, Mr. Spock, this is no dalliance.”

“Indeed.” Spock smiles, that slight quirk of the lips Kirk likes to think is for him alone.

“Well, then,” he says. “I’m not...averse to another meld.”

They spend the night there, in Kirk’s room, together in the hotel bed. Kirk would not have thought himself capable of such restraint, but he is, for Spock, he is. He would not have expected to sleep much, but the mental energy of the melds, is exhausting, and it is all he can do, after the second meld, to stand and remove the rest of his uniform—they had removed their tunics before beginning the second meld—and dress for sleep. He invited Spock to sleep beside him, taking his hand again when they surfaced from the meld, and saying, “Stay. It’ll be all right, Spock. We’ll just sleep. Hell, you can even meditate. Just—you don’t have to leave.”

But when Kirk awakens, early the next morning, before even time to prepare for the ceremonial breakfast, Spock is gone.

***

Spock sleeps for approximately one hour, forty two minutes and sixteen seconds. When he awakens, Jim is sleeping, lying next to him; he seems to glow even in the dark of the hotel room, so bright that Spock thinks it is a wonder he did not know how it would burn to come too close. And he has come far too close. He stands, knowing that he will treasure this memory even as he ensures it does not repeat. Blatant emotionalism with no chance of anything of substance following. And worst of all, it may have been dangerous; though if that is the case, it has been dangerous all along, and last night was no worse than any of it. Last night only made clear to him what has been the case for some time now.

There is no end, no bottom to the well of the connection between them. Jim is everything to him, or would be...Jim is his t’hy’la, or would be if he were capable...the t’hy’la bond, as Spock understands it, is necessarily reciprocal, but Jim, as a human, not telepathic, not psychic in any way, is not capable of feeling an informal, spontaneous bond, so, of course, this, too, is a contradiction, an exception, as it is, in a sense, unreciprocated. There can at least, be no further doubt of Jim’s affections—the t’hy’la bond is such that without some level of mutual regard, the connection on Spock’s end could not exist, but this kind of bond, however one-sided it may seem, is not safe for either of them. No, this particular bond places certain demands on those it connects, even unknowing humans, should they be so unlucky. Jim, Spock thinks, with all of his openness and kindness and trust, to be met only with unyielding obligation and enforced commitment…and at Spock’s next pon farr… no, no. It does not bear examining.

And then there is Jim’s tendency to… well, to _ connect _ with people, in general. For him to have an affection for Spock is perhaps not anything outside of that. And even if it is… “This is no dalliance, Mr. Spock,” he’d said. And Spock—the only regret worth having about the previous night, regardless of the shame that attends it all, the pain one or both of them will eventually face—is that he had responded to it so  _ lustily _ . As if Kirk’s assurance in this single regard had removed any concern. It had been, as the humans say, only a kiss. Perhaps not unforgivable. But…

He cannot ask Jim to restrict himself. He can no longer doubt Jim’s affections, but there are things Jim does not know: the least of these are Spock’s inexperienced indecision, his alien, mutant body and mind, neither human nor Vulcan. And worse still...the nature of this bond that they have formed, and all it would necessitate to act on it, to make it binding on Jim as well...no, he cannot ask Jim for anything at all. Because to do so would be to ask too much. To do so would be to ask for everything.

  
  



	11. Waiting

Spock meditates. Stands. Dresses. The meditation is not unsuccessful, but it, like all his movements that morning, feels mechanical. He has physically recovered from the pon farr. The meld with Kirk had been necessary and restorative. It will not do to blame himself too much for the events of the past that have brought them to this point. It is the future he must think of. His next pon farr will not be so forgiving, and there is no undoing what has been done. Not anytime soon, at any rate.

He takes his seat at the right of the seat indicated for Kirk, though the Captain has not yet arrived. McCoy is there, talking to a man Spock does not recognize, someone from one of the other ships. Spock accepts a coffee when a server walks around offering them, and when she is gone, he finds McCoy in the seat to the left of the the Captain’s.

“Where’s Jim?” McCoy snaps.

Spock raises his eyebrow. “Doctor,” he says. “At this moment, I am no more privy to the Captain’s whereabouts than you are. As you may have observed, I am not currently in his company.”

“Now Spock,” McCoy says. “That’s no way to talk to your doctor. I was just...well, I was concerned because he put me on standby last night and never got back in touch.”

“Indeed.” Spock remembers Jim holding a communicator the night before, when he’d awoken, slumped on the floor, from that first, surprising meld.

“And yet, you’re  _ not _ concerned,” McCoy says. “How very  _ fascinating _ .”

Spock sips his coffee. “Your efforts to goad me, Doctor, will not be successful.”

“Oh, I think I know what I need to know. You were with him. Might even have been the reason he commed me. What’s the matter, Spock? Pon farr come back?” McCoy speaks easily, mockingly, but Spock notices that once the words are out, he seems to catch himself, seems to realize what he’s implied, and McCoy goes rigid; he trains his gaze on the plate in front of him, the archaic human breakfast of bacon and eggs from the replicator, and his hands stiffen. “Jim is all right?” he says quietly.

“I have no reason to believe otherwise,” Spock says. He’s annoyed that the doctor imagines he would hurt Jim, then behave as if nothing had happened, but he’s also aware that the doctor is a highly emotional human, and that his dominant emotion now, concern for Jim, is one Spock can understand all too well. And as for the doctor’s other implication—he will not acknowledge it.

McCoy only nods. And Jim suddenly rounds the corner into the hall, his eyes falling on them, and his smile, as it always does, lighting the room. He is waylaid of course, on his way to them: the President, and no fewer than three of her aides interrupting his path, shaking his hand, the Captain of the Potemkin and the other ship also paying their respects, a small blond woman in science blues wrapping her hand around his wrist and attempting, no doubt, to offer him her personal comm details. But then he’s there, standing in front of them, smilng, circling around the table to take his place between them.

“False alarm last night, Bones,” Kirk says.

“Apparently,” McCoy says, watching him. Kirk remains facing McCoy a moment, and Spock can’t see his face, doesn’t hear him speak. Then he turns and looks at Spock, and Spock lets his face soften.

“Spock,” he says.

“Captain.”

“All’s well?”

“Indeed. All is well, Captain.”

Kirk’s smile widens, indulgent and mischievous, but there’s an edge there, there’s something he wants, and here Spock must tread carefully. “We’ll talk later?” Kirk says.

“Of course, Jim.”

***

It is not so simple as it had been before. After the Observation Deck, Spock’s course of action had been clear to him, even if it was against his own wishes. He had believed that he needed, at that time, to bring distance between the two of them, had even feared that his own telepathic nature might have been subtly influencing the captain into behavior he would not otherwise have demonstrated. But now he’s aware that the introduction of distance would merely add another layer to what is between them, that there is no simple way to counteract this closeness, this attachment. And so he does not attempt it.

He does not attempt it when Jim asks him to meld with the corrupted Earth probe that makes its way onto their ship and nearly kills Scotty and, to Spock’s way of thinking, does something worse to Uhura. He simply melds with it, simply allows Jim to touch him, and without comment or resistance, when he has trouble disconnecting, resurfaces from the meld to find himself in Jim’s arms, looking into his worried face.

He does not attempt it when an ion storm interferes with the transporter, causing it to trigger an interdimensional breach, and bring in the captain’s counterpart from a brutal dimension, and the man, this version of Kirk, stares at him knowingly, offering him anything he wants, and he is forced, against his own emotional inclination, to shut the man into the brig. Does not attempt it when his captain is back aboard, smiling at him on the bridge and gently teasing him into open affection.

And he does not attempt it when the radiation on Gamma Hydra IV causes the entire landing party (exception: Chekov) to age rapidly, and Kirk becomes a dithering, senile old man before Spock’s eyes, a sure tell for the future, Spock thinks, if there were to be a future between them, and Spock is forced to listen to Jim accuse him of ruthless ambition, of mutiny, which Jim, in his rightful state, would never have done. When he recovers, he scarcely seems to remember it. No, Spock will not hurt him further with an introduction of distance that does not truly exist—that cannot exist.

And then, of course, there is McCoy. McCoy, who pries and probes where he is not wanted,  _ nosy _ , Spock thinks, a very human word, but one uniquely applicable to McCoy and his insatiable need to know about Spock and his inner life, to force from him words that should come from no Vulcan. When they are on 892 IV, and made to fight, then he and McCoy are held apart from Jim, Spock tries everything he can think of to free them so they can find Jim, so they can make certain that Jim is all right. And when he has done that, he tries even his muscle memory, attempting to force the bars from their jail. And McCoy still goads him. Finally, he breaks down, makes something of an oblique confession, and McCoy looks satisfied. Spock has not the energy to regret it, finds that he cannot wish it unknown that he feels... _ something _ ...for Jim. And McCoy, to his relief, does not question it further.

But nor can he allow Jim to believe that there is any obligation between them, that there can be anything like what Jim may have had with other lovers, casual or not. The simple fact is that they cannot be lovers, not in that sense of the word, and he cannot allow Jim to believe that it is his desire to formalize their relationship. So, if Jim wants to talk, Spock will talk to him. Gladly, and easily, and openly. But not about this.

  
  


***

Kirk has been waiting. The waiting continues so long that he’s not even sure anymore, what he’s waiting for. When he awoke on Altair, alone in a bed he’d shared, however briefly, with Spock—something he’d never thought would happen—he hadn’t been sure how he’d felt. He’d been happy the night before, exhilarated and terrified and facinated, which might have overwhelmed someone else, but Jim Kirk does not exist at a low volume, and heightened sensations are the stuff of his life by choice. The feel of Spock’s hand on his face seemed to linger, the touch of his mind to Kirk’s...he hadn’t known it could ever be that way, that anything could ever be so wonderful. Those things were all good. The only thing that wasn’t was that Spock was gone. Kirk did not allow himself to dwell on this last point. He dressed,  _ the final day of the dress uniforms _ , he thought,  _ and thank god _ . He did up the zipper, the tiny button hidden at the inside of the collar and cursed whoever had designed these—couldn’t have been the same people who’d designed the comfortable and efficient duty uniforms. The door to Spock’s room was open; the room cleared out and tidied, ready for its next occupant.

Kirk felt oddly fidgety. In the turbolift—or no, it was just an elevator he reminded himself—he straightened his collar, wondered what else to do with his hands, but then he was on the first floor and striding down the hall, nodding at people who tried to get his attention, and not stopping for any of them until he was in the reception hall, not until he had rounded the corner and seen him, he and McCoy, sitting at the Enterprise table, on either side of the seat designated for the captain. His heart did a little leap, and he started toward him, smiling, hoping...

And Spock was fine. They were fine. They’d talk about it later, he told himself.

But days later, they still had not spoken about it. And Kirk thought, perhaps they didn’t need to. Things were easy between them. They were close, and sometimes Spock’s subtle smiles seemed different than they had before, as if there were something they referenced, some kind of agreement or understanding, and Kirk loved it, relished it, returned it, even though he still found himself wanting to hash it all out, to have Spock tell him what it had meant to him, to have Spock spell it out, where he was hoping they’d go from here.

But Spock doesn’t.

What he does though, is save the  _ Enterprise _ from a weapon the likes of which no one has seen before—or at least not since the nuclear weapons of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from a captain, Captain Decker, mad with grief and self-doubt, risking another court martial. What he does is meld with a robot on Kirk’s order, at great personal risk and expense, sending Kirk into a brief panic when he collapses into Kirk’s arms, unable to sever the meld. What he does is throw himself in front of an alien plant that fires its toxic seeds deep into the chests of passersby on a strange planet, simply because Kirk had been about to walk past the plant in question. He nearly dies. “Next time just yell,” Kirk says. And later, when Spock is hit by a blast from an explosive mineral on the same planet, Kirk carries him to safety and marvels at the symmetry between them.

No, perhaps they don’t need to talk about it at all. But he’s still waiting.

***

On  892 IV,  they’re imprisoned, made to fight. Merik—Merikus, he’s calling himself, a traitor, extracts Kirk, tries to entice him to betray his ship too. And Kirk does not, of course he does not, but...well, but then there is Druscilla.

Kirk agonizes over it. Not at the moment, no, then he’s only filled with a kind of resignation coupled with the usual sensation of arousal, perhaps a little stronger than usual because it’s been a while. He hasn’t been with anyone since before Altair, and frankly, all Altair had done on this front was to get him stirred up. He’d mentioned Merik as they moved toward 892 IV, and then they’d found the residue of the survey ship he’d led. And Kirk had never liked Merik, but had never thought he would do what he’d done, would interfere with the prime directive and imprison Spock and McCoy and try to manipulate him this way, but Druscilla is beautiful, and she is relentless, and when she moves her mouth from his to his neck, his stomach, then lower, he melts, knowing even as he does so that the ethics of this moment, Spock aside, are questionable, that adding Spock back into the equation makes what he is doing almost inexcusable. Almost, because Spock still has not mentioned the night on Altair.

But then, after everything else, does he have to?

Afterwards, McCoy tells him that Spock tried to break the bars of the jail, that he’d told McCoy he’d done so from worry over Kirk. Kirk frowns at McCoy.

“He told you he was worried about me? He  _ said _ that? To you?”

McCoy cocks his head. “Now, Jim,” he says, “I’d have expected this conversation to go the other way around. You don’t think I’d say it if it didn’t happen.”

“No. No, Bones. I just…”

“What did you...get up to down there when you were gone?”

“On the planet. Well. There was the girl, Druscilla.” Kirk shrugs.

McCoy raises his eyebrows, but he says nothing. Kirk stands up from the table in sick bay where they’ve been sitting.

“You know something, Jim? I never asked you about that comm on Altair.” McCoy says.

“What? Oh, it was nothing.”

“Was it Spock, Jim? The pon farr?”

Kirk stands. “I said it was nothing, Bones,” he says, and his voice is too loud. “I’m going to the bridge.”

Bones frowns at him, probably because it’s Kirk’s off-duty shift and he’s just left the bridge. But he doesn’t go there to return to duty, but to meet Spock as he leaves the science station, where he’s been supervising maintenance, to take the turbolift with him to the mess hall so they can eat together. Spock all but smiles in greeting, gives an ensign a few last orders, and walks away from the console, which is still beeping faintly. Kirk simply stands by the turbolift, waiting for Spock to cross the bridge, surveying the workings there. Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura look around at him, nod, seem to exchange glances with each other, as if the three of them have a private joke. Kirk tries not to feel excluded. He claps a hand on Spock’s back and lets the doors of the turbolift close behind them. They have been back on board for just a few days, and Kirk has not explained to Spock about Druscilla—it is not clear to him whether or not he should, but it sits between them—not so much the act itself as the fact of the uncertainty about it. Do they need to talk?

Oh, they  _ talk _ , of course, Kirk expresses his exasperation, even as he is honored, at the responsibility of transporting a variety of Federation ambassadors to Babel. Any other time, he might have chosen to dwell on the honor, but so soon after Altair—he feels that he’s had enough of the dress uniforms and the pomp to last the rest of the mission.

Spock tells Kirk what had prompted the diagnostic to be run on the science station console, expresses his satisfaction with the work of Ensign Kathrapali, who he’d left in charge. They discuss a few other ensigns, discuss their weekly chess match: they talk. But not about that.

  
  



	12. The Vulcan Way

The day has arrived. Most of the ambassadors are aboard, and after a night spent in orbit above Vulcan, the Vulcan ambassador and his wife, Spock’s parents, will shortly be beamed aboard as well. Spock has spent the evening in meditation, and now he stands with the Captain and McCoy, as he has done for the other ambassasdors, to welcome them aboard. He has not spoken to his father for eighteen years, since he withdrew his name from consideration for the Vulcan Science Academy and left for Starfleet. And aside from infrequent video calls, he has not seen his mother since the year before the mission began. He hides the anxiety he feels at their imminent presence. He is hopeful that at this first meeting, at least, Sarek will simply treat him as a stranger, that there will be nothing to explain to the rest of the crew. But eventually, there will be no hiding. No hiding the familial estrangement from Kirk and McCoy (who will demand explanations), and no hiding the thing he and Kirk don’t discuss—not from his parents. His mother—perhaps she will not condemn him for it, but she cannot truly understand. But his father. If he sees, he will surely view it as a failing, and perhaps the largest one of Spock’s life.

He is quiet, joining Kirk and McCoy as they talk, McCoy, complaining as usual about some inconsequential. He really couldn’t have said what later. He shows McCoy the ta’al, for the twelfth time, but he does not speak. He is glad Kirk is busy, focused, or his almost total silcence would have been noticed. When Sarek, his father, emerges from the shuttle, his stomach turns over. Spock holds himself straight, allows himself to be introduced, and offers the standard Starfleet diplomatic greeting.

“Vulcan honors us with your presence. We come to serve.”

Sarek glances at him as if he is a poorly behaved child, then addresses the captain. Spock feels a sharp stab of shame. Kirk blinks, takes it in stride, but Spock can see that Kirk has seen the deliberate rudeness, and worse, that he may have somehow glimpsed the flicker of hurt Spock felt. There is no offense where none is taken, he is so fond of saying. But here, now...even if he makes it out of this without comment, Kirk will follow him to his quarters and demand explanation.

His mother, when Sarek calls for her, attends him immediately, walking past Spock without a word or a glance. Inwardly, he seethes. They are being more traditional here for show, and he finds it repellent—it certainly was not Amanda’s idea to put on such a display, but surely she might have acknowledged him, even a nod, or a glance—from a human, from his mother, this coldness is unexpected. Spock does not trust his gaze to remain neutral, and he looks down so no one will make eye contact with him.

“As soon as you're settled I'll arrange a tour of the ship. Mister Spock will conduct you,” Kirk says.

“I’d prefer another guide, Captain,” Sarek says. Kirk looks at Spock, and this time, Spock is not quick enough. Kirk sees something there, but he does not draw attention. “As you wish, Ambassador,” he says. Spock makes the mistake of thinking the situation might resolve itself. If Sarek does not want his company, he might leave, and no one will be the wiser, as yet.

But then Kirk says, “Mr. Spock, we leave orbit in two hours. Would you care to beam down and visit your parents.” And Amanda turns to face him; it’s almost like a challenge.

But of course, there can be no other choice: he takes in a large breath, braces himself, and speaks.

“Captain, Ambassador Sarek and his wife _are_ my parents.” 

***

But Spock does not manage to avoid them on the tour. Kirk brings them through to engineering while Spock is there, making an adjustment to the ballasts. Spock tells himself that it is llogical that this was done on purpose, but he knows it was, all the same—why else would engineering be their first stop, if the captain had not figured out that this is where he was? He makes a mental note to remind Scotty, who must have divulged his whereabouts, that he, not Kirk, is the one in charge of the duty roster. But the truth is, he is more alarmed that Kirk is conducting the tour, spending this time with Sarek, whose disdain for Spock may be contagious once understood.

He hears Kirk explaining things at such a basic level that a child could understand. All of this is by design, he thinks. Sure enough, Amanda, bored, breaks away and comes closer to him.

“After all these years among humans, you still haven’t learned to smile,” she says. Spock does not understand why she presses him so—she knows he cannot satisfy her. She knows what he is, has had the whole of his life to learn it, but she refuses. And he does not like to see her hurt, does not welcome her paradoxical reminders that pain is all he brings her.

“Humans smile with so little provocation,” Spock says.

Amanda seems to look through him, to see what he has done, attempting to feign a lack of understanding by making a double-edged comment, neutral on one level, insulting by Vulcan standards on the other. Sarek has taught him well indeed.

“And you haven’t come to see us in four years, either.” Now Spock feels a flare of anger.

“The situation between my father and myself has not changed,” Spock says. As if demonstrating the point, Sarek calls out for Amanda then, as if she might be contaminated by talking with him. And it is as if he is back on Vulcan, all those years ago.

“Mister Spock. A moment, if you please,” Kirk says. There is something in his manner, as if he can see Spock’s pain, as if he thinks he can fix it. But if Kirk can read him, then Sarek can, as well, and that is unacceptable. Spock tugs at a thread loose inside of him, pulls it tighter until it no longer shows from the outside. When he speaks, his voice is steady, flat.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Explain the computer components.” Ah, so he thinks he will give Spock a chance to shine. He wishes he could have spoken with Kirk, could have told him—perhaps could have spared them all this discomfort.

“I gave Spock his first instruction in computers, Captain,” Sarek says. “He chose to devote his knowledge to Starfleet instead of the Vulcan Science Academy.”

It is the same argument as ever. And there is nothing for it. In spite of Sarek’s hypocrisy, he is the bearer of the Vulcan standard, by virtue of his full Vulcan blood, and the esteem the planet has accorded him, and Spock still wishes he could please him, even if he refuses to succumb to the hypocrisy himself.

“If you will excuse me, Captain,” Spock says, and he leaves engineering. He does not go where he will be expected. Instead of the bridge, his quarters, or the labs, he shuts himself into the most emotionally charged place on the ship, the Observation Deck. It is not empty—probably there is no public area of the ship that is tonight, but it is relatively quiet. Only a few others, a couple sitting quietly, holding hands, a diplomat walking though at a rather brisk pace. The darkness is almost total, and Spock takes a seat, looking out at the stars.

***

He had spent his entire childhood on Vulcan feeling like an experiment. His parents discussed his every milestone, his every talent, preference, through the lens of his hybrid nature, as if there was no _Spock_ as individual, but only as representative of the merger between two species. Odd that he should have a preference for shepherd’s pie when it seemed so particularly human, plomeek soup, when no human could stomach it; odd that he should possess such talent for science when his Vulcan blood ran so thin. As if there were no other Vulcans who enjoyed human food, or the reverse. As if there were no humans with a talent for science, or Vulcans who did not particularly enjoy plomeek soup. And it had taken him so long to reach a kohl-tor, they said, even though he had reached it at the age of nine—an average age. This was because of his thin Vulcan blood, they had said, as if there were no Vulcans who had struggled. As if Sybok, his own brother, and a full-blooded Vulcan, had not been routinely admonished for his lacking habit and skill in meditation—Sybok, who had achieved a kohl-tor at the age of ten—which was still average.

And even though Spock meditated regularly, had accomplished the kohl-tor by a respectable enough age nine, Sarek had refused to meld with him for the whole of his life, not even to establish a standard parental bond, saying that he did not wish to subject himself to the disorder of Spock’s mind, neither one thing nor quite the other, no matter how disciplined he might seem to Amanda. It might be dangerous, he’d said at first. But even after all the examinations and tests had shown that it would pose no increased risk, he still refused. He melded with Sybok, even occasionally, with Vulcan elders. But with Spock, he preserved his distance always, as if Spock were still only a specimen in a petri dish, a half-formed idea perhaps best forgotten.

School, when he began it, was fine, academically, although his teachers treated his progress and success as surprising, as if he were diagnosed with a low IQ, and no one had ever expected much from him. And even his place at the top of his class was not enough for Sarek. For his part, he seemed to take it for granted that Spock would be academically exceptional, but this too, took on another meaning because it was Spock, the half-human, who had achieved it. Look here, he said, the way you solved this problem—you have not outlined each step; it is almost as if you solved it through intuition.

“How very human,” Amanda would sometimes say, as if goading Sarek, and heedless of the effect on Spock himself, who would feel only shame—even his hard work and intelligence only a sign of the progress of their experiment, of the ways in which he was not truly Vulcan.

Or, when he’d written an essay on political thought that had earned him the highest grade in his political theory class:

 _A deep, natural understanding of the human psychology on which this philosophy is based,_ Sarek had said. The paper had been an assignment comparing the thought of Earth’s Pre-Ancients—Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, with the thinking of Surak. Spock’s understanding was no more _natural_ than anyone’s—he had read the same books as the others, wrestled with the concepts just as long, if not longer, with his father, or the idea of him, hovering in the background alongside his mother’s I’ll-show-you smile. Sometimes, when he was younger, he had thought he would break from the pressure of it all, a kind of pressure he was not taught the language to articulate.

When he finally took the examination to be released from the Vulcan education system, he’d felt free—only momentarily, and he’d known it wouldn’t last, that feeling of being obligated nowhere—but it had been a good feeling. He’d been reading about Starfleet, had heard about a series of upcoming missions the exploratory branch of the Federation had been planning, and the need for competent scientists aboard their ships. He could not disguise from his mother that he dreamed of it, the life of freedom among people who had no conception of him, no sense of what he’d been meant to be. The choices he’d have, the opportunites for exploration outside the bonds of Vulcan thought and judgment. The chance to define himself. At that time, he had not dwelled upon the possibility for human xenophobia, though even then he had known it was possible. He’d only longed for an escape.

“Spock,” she’d said, holding up his padd, which featured an informative missive from Starfleet. He’d left it on his desk before she’d entered his room. “Is this what you want?”

“I am Vulcan, mother,” he’d said. “What I want is of no consequence.”

“Oh, _Spock_.” She’d held him then, rare that she would try, that he would have allowed it. But the fact of it was how they’d both known what would happen: that Spock would defy his father. But what they had not known was how, or why.

***

In engineering, Kirk watches Spock go and and knows he has commited a misstep. _What can be the problem?_ He has never conceived of Spock being anything but a source of pride for his parents—the most accomplished Starfleet first officer, the only Vulcan on active duty for most of his career, and most of that on the _flagship_ no less? And Spock has never said anything to him about any of this—he pushes that thought down. It doesn’t make sense to dwell on that sort of thing. He can’t really expect Spock to confide in him the way a human might.

“I’m sorry, Ambassador, Kirk says. I did not mean to offend. I thought that—”

“Offense is a human emotion. I’m returning to my quarters,” Sarek says. “Continue, my wife.”

Kirk watches him go. There is a coldness about him that seems natural in a way that Spock’s does not, he thought, as if Spock’s is conscious, chosen, but Sarek’s a fiber of his being. He wonders what it would be like being brought up by such a father, being married to such a man. He turns to Spock’s mother.

“Mrs. Sarek, I just don’t understand,” Kirk says.

“Amanda. I’m afraid you couldn’t pronounce the Vulcan name,” she says.

“Can you?”

“After a fashion, and after many years of practice,” she says. Kirk marvels at her—she seems almost...normal. “Shall we continue the tour—my husband did request it.”

“It sounded more like a command.”

“Of course. He’s a Vulcan. I’m his wife.”

Kirk redirects, hoping she’ll take the bait. “And Spock’s his son.”

“You don't understand the Vulcan way, Captain. It's logical. It's a better way than ours. But it's not easy. It has kept Spock and Sarek from speaking as father and son for eighteen years.”

Eighteen years. Kirk feels a stab of pain. He doesn’t think he can like Sarek. It may be a struggle even to respect him for the short length of his presence aboard this ship. But Amanda...he has yet to understand her. 

“Spock is my best officer, and my friend,” he says.

Amanda nods, looking very wise, as if again she knows more than she is letting on. Kirk feels unsettled by it. “I'm glad he has such a friend,” she says. “It hasn’t been easy on Spock. Neither human nor Vulcan. At home nowhere except Starfleet.”

“I take it that Spock disagreed with his father on a choice of career,” Kirk says, thinking: _Can that really be all?_ But he can’t think what else there could be. Spock, surely, couldn’t have _done_ anything to earn that contempt. And he’s sure that it’s _Sarek_ who feels it for _Spock_ ; for all their supposed unemotionalism, the older man’s disdain is palpable, and Spock had looked almost cowed in a way Kirk had hated to see.

“My husband has nothing against Starfleet,” Amanda says. “But Vulcans believe that peace should not depend on force.”

“Starfleet force is used only as a last resort. We’re an instrument of civilization. And it’s a better opportunity for a scientist to study the universe than he can get at the Vulcan Science Academy.”

“Perhaps,” Amanda gives him a tolerant smile, as if she’s heard it all before. “But Sarek wanted Spock to follow his teachings, as Sarek followed the teachings of his own father.”

Kirk longs to press further, but Amanda’s manner is flinty. She is not cold, but she seems as cautious as the wife of an ambassador ought to be, as restrained as you’d expect from anyone living on Vulcan. He escorts her back to her quarters when the tour is complete, and returns to the bridge.

It’s an exhausting day, with the diplomats all aboard, the dress uniform itching, Spock strangely silent, and Spock’s parents hovering at the edge of his awareness. And now there’s a ship shadowing them, something else to keep track of, something else to keep silent about to the delegation. Kirk has attended the first banquet, mingled just enough to drop in on a discussion between Spock and McCoy, apparently about Vulcan teddy bears, as Spock’s parents wander away from the two of them, Amanda looking satisfied. 

“Not precisely, Doctor,” Spock was saying, as Kirk moved near enough to hear. “On Vulcan, the teddy bears are alive, and they have six-inch fangs.” Kirk had smiled blandly, but before he could figure out what was going on, the comm had sounded and he’d dashed out, followed by Spock--but Spock had made no effort to catch up with him, had merely walked into the turbolift behind him, and gone to the bridge with him in silence.

And now, as he returns to the recreation room, already exhausted, Kirk cannot help but think of Altair, of the way it felt to hold Spock in his arms, the sudden yet complete lack of distance between them--would Spock let him help now, if he offered? Would Spock tell him what was wrong, tell him what had happened? Or ought he to silently accept this distance, this space, as what Spock needed?

When Kirk enters, his eye is immdiately drawn to Sarek, just as Gav suddenly launches himself at Sarek and finds himself thrown backward for his trouble, flicked away like an irritating gnat. Kirk throws himself between them, restraining Gav, who has apparently been attempting to bully Sarek all day. _This is worse than babysitting,_ Kirk thinks.

“Gentlemen,” Kirk says. Gav struggles against him, and Kirk shoves him against the wall. “Gentlemen,” Kirk says. “Whatever arguments you have between yourselves is your business. My business is running the ship. As long as I command, there will be order.”

“Of course, Captain,” says Sarek.

“Understood,” says Gav. “There will be payment for your slander, Sarek.”

“Threats are illogical,” Sarek says. But he adds, in a tone that sounds, nevertheless, threatening: “And payment is usually expensive.”

Gav glares at Sarek, then leaves the gathering under the older man’s withering gaze.

Kirk watches him go, and though he is sure Sarek had not begun the physical conflict, at the moment, he wants nothing more than these so-called diplomats off his ship. All of them. And especially Sarek. He turns around to face him and finds Sarek meeting his gaze.

Kirk returns it. Eventually, one of the Andorians approaches, deferent, apologetic. Kirk had intended to socialize, but now he seizes the moment to escape. Back in his quarters, he removes the dress uniform and undershirt and grabs his wraparound tunic, his most comfortable option. But he gets a comm before he even has a moment to put it on.

“Security to Captain Kirk.”

Kirk sighs, presses the comm button. “Kirk here.”

“Lieutenant Joseph, sir. I’m on deck eleven, section A3. I’ve just found one of the Tellarites murdered. I think it’s the ambassador himself, sir.”

It’s a sign of the stress of the day that Kirk feels primarily exasperation at this news. “Understood, Lieutenant,” he says. “Maintain your post. I’m on my way.”

Kirk comms McCoy and heads down to meet the lieutenant. “Dismissed,” Kirk says to the lieutenant, as McCoy approaches the body, begins examining it. “How was he killed?”

“His neck was broken. By an expert.”

“Explain.”

“Well, from the nature and location of the break, I'd say the killer knew exactly where to apply pressure to snap the neck instantly.”

“Who aboard would have that knowledge?”

McCoy looks to Spock, who speaks almost as if on cue.

“Vulcans,” Spock says. “On Vulcan, the method is called _tal-shaya_. It was considered a merciful form of execution in ancient times.”

Kirk knows he should tread carefully, but he doesn’t. The total vacuum of information, along with the pace of the day itself, has gotten to him. “Spock,” he says. “A short time ago I broke up an argument between Gav and your father.” But Spock hardly reacts. He merely nods and says, “Indeed, Captain? Interesting.”

“Interesting?” snaps McCoy? “Spock, do you realize that makes your father the most likely suspect.”

“Vulcans do not approve of violence,” Spock says.

“You’re saying he oculdn’t have done it?” Kirk says, and there’s something hopeful bubbling up in him as he speaks. He _wants_ Spock to say that, he realizes. 

But Spock shakes his head just slightly. “No, Captain. I’m merely saying it would be illogical to kill without reason. If there were a reason, my father is quite capable of killing. Logically and efficiently.”


	13. Logically and Efficiently

The Vulcan Science Academy accepted Spock’s preliminary application and advanced his candidacy to the next round. Spock endured the interviews. A full series of them, one with each member of the board, representing each of the major sciences, then an additional interview with the full committee. The VSA was nothing if not thorough, and in his case, they seem more so, if anything, whether because of the spectacle anything involving him always seems to be or because they do not wish to risk accidentally admitting someone who is unable to withstand Vulcan rigor, he cannot say. Never mind, as always, that Spock has never broken under Vulcan pressure before, even under the extra layers always applied to him, just to be sure he can withstand it.

“We will have our decision in a month’s time,” T’Landra, the head of the committee, had said, once they were finished with everything they had undertaken as part of their evaluation. “We have many applicants to consider.”

Spock inclined his head in acknowledgment, but privately, he seethed. The other applicants, he would have warranted, had not been subjected to all of this: the standard appication and review of his examination scores, interviews, testimonials from those who knew him—even T’Pau, his father, and T’Pring, had been summoned, though he had not been called to testify for T’Pring, and she had received her admission a month ago, for the upcoming term, despite her examination scores being seven places behind his. And days ago, even Stonn, whose scores had been merely acceptable, and who common knowledge among their peers held had not ever attained a mediation deeper than a standard kohl-tor (irrelevant, perhaps, but considered a signifier of mental rigor), had received his acceptance into the geology program, which was admittedly a somewhat lower-level program than the joint xenobiology and physics that Spock sought.

When Spock spoke to Sarek of the unfairness, asked him if he might intervene, Sarek had refused. Spock had asked in front of Amanda, had raised the question when his father was home for only a short time after having been away for months. Amanda had suggested he ask; he had tried to explain to her that it would be pointless, but she had told him the opposite of what Sarek had said, and her logic had been good. So he had worked out his argument, had explained that trying him to a point past what the Vulcans were tried did not demonstrate his equality—rather it demanded his superiority. Sarek blinked at him, then began explaining to Spock, as if he were very stupid, that he was not a full Vulcan, should not expect to be treated as such. He did not stop his tirade even when Amanda tried to intervene, and she finally shouted at him and stormed from the room, and Spock was left to take the brunt of his father’s anger, always expressed coolly:

“I think I have left you too long unsupervised,” Sarek said. “You grow too human and tax your mother’s many emotions. You will accompany me to Andoria when I leave for treaty negotiations, and we will discuss your education further.”

Spock did not shudder, but had he lacked Vulcan controls, he might have. Alone with his father for two weeks. Representing their culture in another land. His father would be constantly reprimanding him, constantly reminding him of his insufficiency as a Vulcan. At least he would get to see Andoria Prime.

***

They left two days later, a diplomatic shuttle to a Federation space station, then from their an Andorian freighter to the planet. Spock’s father traveled with a small contingent, one staffer and a single security officer. They eyed Spock skeptically, but otherwise regarded him little.

The shuttle was the last place of Vulcan normalcy Spock experienced on the trip. On the shuttle, it was mostly quiet, he was ignored, and his father and the staffer worked, while the security officer stationed himself nearby and remained alert. Spock read, worked on a proof he was exploring, and tried not to fall asleep—his father would be unimpressed with such a reversion to instinct.

He was appalled at the station. It was his first time on board a station this far from Vulcan. As a child, he’d been to one other station, a new station, on the night of its opening. Sarek and Amanda had been invited as diplomats from Vulcan, but had been brand new, not yet operational, and Spock had been so young. This station had been operating for years, was much farther from Vulcan, and was very different from the atmosphere Spock was used to. As they emerged from the airlock into the dark, dingy hallways, a scuffle broke out just meters away, a huge scuffle pitting Andorians against...were those Terrans? It was always hard to say, with so many analogs. And a Klingon? 

“This way,” Sarek said, as Spock’s gaze snagged on them. The air on the station felt thick, dusty, both heavy and dry. Their soles of their shoes seemed to grind against the unpolished floor.

“Is there no contingent to welcome us, T’Nara?” Sarek said.

“No, sir.” T’Nara said. “There is only a skeleton crew on duty, and that altercation we passed seemed to involve the station’s captain. But when I checked, First Officer Kelka indicated that we should escort ourselves to the diplomatic quarters. I apologize: I did not explain adequately.”

“You provide me with the information I need when I need it, T’Nara. That is all I require.”

Spock felt a pang of jealousy. From his father, this was high praise; and he had never received it.

As if to emphasize his point, Sarek now turned and made eye contact with Spock.

“Keep pace,” he said. “If you lag behind, it makes it difficult for Sedek to monitor us all. Remember that until somewhat recently, this was an enemy station.” Sedek, his father’s security, gave a single nod, and Spock quickened his pace, keeping his eyes forward, but still taking in the spare girdings, the flickering, old-style lighting, and the horrible, low hum of the structure’s energy core.

“This station is quite old,” he said, hoping to elicit more information.

But Sarek glanced at him as if he had stated that water was for drinking, or air for breathing. And it was T’Nara who nodded and explained that it was Andorian, and pre-Federation. And Spock, though he had not wanted to credit T’Nara with anything, found himself grateful to her.

The rooms were cold. So cold Spock had not known it was possible to live this way. He had been to Mount Seleya, seen where the Vulcan acolytes kneel and meditate on the path to kohlinar. He had been to Earth in winter, a place called Vermont, where the snow is thick and fast and constant. But nothing like this: They were indoors, but their breaths made white clouds in front of them. The rooms, or at least the room Spock is sharing with his father (itself an unanticipated source of consternation) was equipped with two beds with sparse covering, just one lined quilt for each of them.

“Father,” he said. “Is there a way to adjust the thermostat for our quarters?”

Sarek, who had been pulling his cloak around himself, fixed Spock with a stern glare and said, “You have your own internal thermostat, or so to  _ speak _ , do you not?”

“Yes, Father,” Spock said. But he sighed afterwards, and he could  _ feel _ Sarek’s disapproval. He turned his back to his father and lay on his side on the bed closest to the far wall, pulling the blankets up and over him, and his knees into his chest to conserve heat. Beside him, he heard Sarek settling in, moving blankets around him as he sat on his own bed.

“Spock?” Sarek said.

“Yes?”

“My recommendation is for meditation rather than sleep. It is important to remain alert on stations.”

“I will meditate reclining,” Spock said. It was perhaps a lie. He wanted to sleep; he had not yet decided whether he would heed his father’s advice or not. But Sarek did not correct him—that lying on his side in the fetal position hardly constituted  _ reclining _ —did not argue with him—that his meditative breathing would be encumbered by such a position as he has adopted, nor that there was no traditional form of Vulcan meditation undertaken with blankets wrapped around the entirety of the meditator’s compacted body. Instead, it was silent. And Spock, even as he guiltily started toward a kohltor, had already started toward sleep, and it was sleep, not kohltor, that he achieved.

There was no way to tell the passage of time, other than with Spock’s internal clock. But something had gone wrong, horribly wrong, and when he woke, he was hot, sweating, but the air was terribly, terribly cold. He could not breathe properly, his nose dripped, and there was a rushing in his ears. And then he heard it again, a clicking outside their door. He opened his eyes and they burned, the cold wrenching tears from them, and when he tried to move, his body shook and pulsed. Everything hurt, and though he had just slept, he was very tired.

“Father,” he said, for he was ill, ill enough to require assistance.

There was the clicking again.

“Be quiet,” Sarek said, and his voice did not come from the bed, as Spock had expected. He forced himself to roll over, the blankets falling away and searing his skin with icy air. The room was dark, and Sarek was standing by the door. Spock saw the door move, the strip of light beneath it shifting, and he did not know what he was doing, he acted only on instinct, standing, moving to his father’s side, as the door opened and someone pushed another person backward into him, and he had just enough time to reach out and nerve pinch the pusher so that the three of them fell together, two on top of him, the horrible thud moving through him. Spock caught himself, trying to push himself out from under them. One of them, he saw, was Sedek, and with the brush of his skin against Spock’s, he could tell that Sedek was dead. The other man, the one who had pushed him, was Andorian. The whole thing took only seconds, and Spock looked up and saw that there were two more of them; both with weapons, and one of them...one of them wore a Starfleet uniform. They held phasers, pointed at his father, who was, incredibly, attempting to disarm them both.

Having no success with throwing the two heavy bodies off of him, he slid out from under them, attempting to grab Sedek or the Andorian’s phasers, but he was dizzy, and could only move slowly, his efforts not controlling his movements the way they should have.

Suddenly, Sarek threw one of the Andorians backward, sending him flying into the Starfleet officer, and they both crumpled to the ground. Spock stared in horror, certain that the first Andorian’s neck was broken, by the way he fell.  _ Tal-shaya _ , he thought. Sarek leaned forward and grasped Sedek’s phaser. Spock watched as Sarek maintained eye contact with the Starfleet Andorian and turned the dial of the phaser to kill as the man stood. Footsteps—Spock heard them coming, and another Andorian appeared, holding T’Nara by the neck, she was struggling but obviously injured. Sarek fired, once, twice, and flawlessly: There were three dead Andorians in the room, one of them a Starfleet officer. Of Spock and Sarek’s party, two of them were now incapacitated, Sedek dead, leaving the remaining three of them without security on an apparently hostile Andorian station.

“Father,” Spock said. He was trembling, but not from emotion; he could not stand without effort, could not breathe without effort, and he did not know what else he would need to do besides stand and breathe.

But Sarek turned to him, his eye also catching on T’Nara, who had risen to her feet and was clutching her arm which she cradled, bent in front of her. There was a deep, bloody gash on her face.

“Come, Spock, T’Nara,” Sarek says. “Hurry.”

They moved quickly. Spock was feverish and achy, and not at all alert as they somehow entered the airlock, found their shuttle, and made their way back into space. Sarek piloted the thing; Spock had not known he could. Spock could not say what else happened. On the shuttle he collapsed on the floor and no one stopped him, no one touched him until they had docked on Vulcan.

***

They never did discuss Spock’s education. Instead, back on Vulcan, Sarek notified the authorities of the incident, and dispatched to Andoria again within days, leaving Spock at home to recover from an acute case of influenza compounded with pneumonia. Spock did not believe his father to have relished the incident, but he could not remove from his feverish brain the image of the man turning the phaser to kill.

Spock’s recovery was slow, the more Vulcan aspects of Spock’s constitution lacking defenses against the influenza virus, and when Spock was over the fever, he still felt much of the pain and fatigue. He used the time to complete his application to Starfleet Academy, including the necessary correspondence. He was surprised to find that his instructors and even T’Pau were willing to provide references for him without consulting his father. He was surprised to find that, while Starfleet Academy was aware that Sarek was his father, they did not demand to hear from him before admitting him. He was surprised to find them impressed with him, even after their interview, that the opportunities they could offer for research were every bit as exciting and novel as they seemed. When Spock received his acceptance from the Vulcan Science Academy, he wrote back at once declining the offer. The idea of following in Sarek’s footsteps no longer held any meaning for him. He would do whatever it took to get into Starfleet; he knew that now.

But he needn’t have worried. Starfleet Academy accepted him the very next day.

When Sarek arrived back on the planet, he sought Spock immediately.

“You experienced the kind of violence there on the station that you would be subjected to regularly in Starfleet,” Sarek said. “You are a Vulcan—you cannot approve of such.”

“Starfleet is not an instrument of violence, Father,” Spock said. He had watched his man kill three people, and calmly walk away. He knows that it would be to no purpose to add: “No more than you yourself are such an instrument.” It is irrelevant.

  
  



	14. This Shame, This Bond, This Beautiful Thing

Spock, Kirk, and McCoy make their way uneasily to Sarek and Amanda’s quarters. Spock thinks perhaps he should excuse himself, should return to the bridge, but he does not. The other two seem to expect him to stay, and he can feel the questions coming from Kirk, but he cannot tell what they are. He remembers the feel of the man’s arms, the strength of him, the sense that he is holding Spock up. He lets himself feel that again, even though they do not touch, have not touched that way again.

Sarek is not there, but he enters shortly after they do, and Kirk turns to him, and says,

“Ambassador, the Tellarite, Gav has been murdered.”

“His neck was broken, Mister Ambassador,” McCoy adds, “by what Spock describes as tal-shaya.” _Well done, McCoy,_ Spock thinks. His father might have deduced that he had explained tal-shaya without having it brought directly to his attention. Now Sarek looks like he knows why they have come.

“Indeed? Interesting.” He says. He avoids Spock’s eyes and Spock tries to tamp down the rage and shame he feels.

“Yes,” Kirk says, and he is speaking carefully, his authority shining, but overlaying a foundation of respect. “Ambassador, where were you during the past hour?”

“Captain, you're not accusing him?” Amanda demands, and Spock feels it again, the pity he has for his mother on these occasions. Illogical, but so is she; the illogic justifies itself.

“If only on circumstantial evidence,” Spock says, carefully, “he is a logical suspect.” And surely she has not forgotten the previous incident on the space station.

At any rate, Sarek has not. “I quite agree,” he says. He looks almost pleased at their logic.

“Then where were you during the hour?” Kirk demands.

“In private meditation, Captain. Spock will tell you that such meditation is a personal experience, not to be discussed. especially not with Earthmen.” Spock looks down; his father has no idea what he has _discussed_ with Kirk. But then, that means it is under control, does it not?

“That's a very convenient excuse, Ambassador,” Kirk says, and Spock cannot miss the patronage in Kirk’s voice, the ghost of his own thinking, the _you have no idea what I know about Vulcans, about your son. You have know I idea what I know, what we have shared._

 _And you, Jim,_ Spock thinks, _do not know what it is we truly share._

And suddenly Sarek crumples.

***

A wave of panic overtakes Kirk as Sarek’s body folds in on itself. _No, this can’t happen. Not like this, not on board the Enterprise, not with Spock standing right there,_ and of everyone in the room, Spock’s the only one who doesn’t move. Something twists in Kirk’s chest at it. Spock must be hurting, must feel so trapped and locked in. He wants to go to him, but he can’t, not here, not with this kind of audience. So instead, he goes to Sarek.

“I believe it’s something to do with his cardiovascular system,” says McCoy.

“Can you help him?” Kirk says. He’s leaning forward, his own heart pounding, wishing he could spare Spock this. Amanda, who had been leaning over Sarek, now straigtens, focusing on him, her eyes narrowing slightly; she seems to see something in him she hadn’t seen before, something that surprises her. And Kirk can’t meet her gaze. He leans forward, helping McCoy get Sarek on the bed until they can call for medics. Spock does not help; when Kirk looks around as they make their way down the halls, Amanda is there, tears in her eyes, but Spock is nowhere to be found.

He’s there, though, on the bridge, when Kirk finally returns to duty, and Kirk takes a seat, tries to focus on the problem at hand, but it’s quiet; there are no other developments, and he doesn’t think, just stands, walks to the science station and stands there a moment, behind Spock. Spock can hear him there, he knows—it isn’t possible to sneak up on Spock—but he doesn’t turn, and Kirk sighs, walks around the guard rail until he’s right behind him, close enough to touch. But of course he doesn’t touch him.

“Spock.”

“Yes, Captain. I get sensor readings of tri-tritanium from the alien ship’s hull,” Spock says.

“I’m sorry about your father,” Kirk says, his voice soft, careful.

“Yes,” says Spock, and his is voice cold, heavy like a stone. He doesn’t trouble to keep it down, he doesn’t look at him. “It could adversely affect our mission.”

Kirk feels like he’s been slapped. He hasn’t been pushed away this forcefully for a long time.

“Aren’t you worried about him?” he says. He wants to say, _You_ can _be. You don’t have to do this in front of me. You_ know _you don’t have to do this in front of me._

“Worry is a human emotion,” Spock says.”I accept what has happened.” Spock sits down, activates the scanner. “The ship's hull seems to have a high density level or is cloaked against sensor probes. It is manned, but sensors cannot make out specifics.”

“I see,” Kirk says. _If that’s the way Spock wants it,_ he thinks. They certainly have enough to focus on without bringing emotion into it. It’s just that for him, the emotion is already there.

As the duty shift ends, Kirk tries again. “Spock,” he says. “I’m going to return to sick bay. I’d like for you to come with me.”

“I do not believe my presence will be welcomed. And I certainly will provide no assistance beyond what the doctor can.”

“Aren’t you curious at least?” Jim says. “Don’t you want to know how he’s doing? How your mother is doing?”

Spock turns in his seat. “All right, Jim,” he says. “I will accompany you.” Kirk resists offering Spock his arm (a ridiculous notion that flitted across his mind), but he can’t keep the tenderness out of his eyes. He wants to ask him what happened with Sarek, he wants to know it all. But Spock is quiet in turbolift, he’s silent, even when they’re in sick bay, until the conversation gets too far away from Sarek, from what to do for him. Kirk doesn’t miss it—Spock is the one to bring the conversation back around to that. Spock is the one to suggest the treatment, to suggest that he undergo an experimental procedure, to suggest that he absorb the risk to save his father. And he does it as a matter of course. Suddenly, and uncharacteristically, Kirk is overwhelmed. Spock is so good, but so unwilling to show it. So unwilling to let anyone, him included, acknowledge it. But Kirk will acknowledge it, to himself at least. He has to; his very constitution won’t allow him to do otherwise. He makes his excuses, and takes the more deserted paths through the hall, ruminating. In truth, he probably should confer with security—there is, after all, a murderer aboard, and with Sarek confined to sick bay, and credibly ill, it no longer makes sense to focus all their energy on him as a suspect, so he takes a meandering path through the halls and levels, to the security station.

He never makes it there.

***

Spock is back on the bridge, alone but for the helmsman and navigator, for this shift two fairly inexperienced ensigns, and two security officers stationed by the turbolift door. His mind is organized into careful rows, the pathways zigging into each other, and he is monitoring them, trying to keep them all separate, trying to let them all overlap. Outwardly, he is still. His body is taut, his muscles consciously relaxed, his eyes observing his own sight. There is nothing for this relentless monitoring. It will not do, now of all times, to let his control slip.

He has not convinced McCoy, or his mother. It is no matter. He will do so. His father will not die for human fear. And as for his own life, it makes very little difference. If he is gone, there will be many who will feel less pain, less distress, than they currently do. His mother and father will be finally freed of their experiment. There will be no more looks askance at Stonn, back on Vulcan. McCoy will be spared the forced proximity that brings him so much discomfort. And Kirk. Kirk will be free, Kirk will be safe. He pushes away the matching fear—that Kirk will be broken. Kirk cannot feel what he does, a broken t’hy’la bond cannot shatter him the way it would a Vulcan; he cannot even be aware of it.

No, it will not do to let his control slip, to become maudlin as he had under the influence of the polywater.

He checks the scanner again. The ship is still pacing them, still emitting too much energy to be any known quantity. 

The comm chirps, and he moves over to the communications station.

“Bridge,” comes Kirk’s voice. “Spock?”

Something is wrong.

“Spock here,” he says.

“I'm on deck five, near my quarters. I've been attacked by an Andorian. Security. Security team.”

“Captain? Captain?”

“Sir?” says one of the ensigns. Spock ignores him, looks to the secuirty officers and nods to one the lieutenants there as he starts for the turbolift, radioing for backup. “Call a medical team as well,” Spock says, as he follows him into the turbolift, summoning Mr. Scott to take the comm.

They find them both there, the Andorian attacker, slowly coming to as the security officers grab him, lift him to his feet, binding his hands behind him. But Spock barely spares a glance for him; it is Kirk he sees, Kirk, lying still, his blood pooling around him, on his own hand, rich and bright. Spock lets the medics take him even though he wants to lift him, hold him, bear his weight as long as it takes. Is it wrong, he thinks, as a few of the lower level medics remain behind to clean up the blood, that he envies them the touch of it, of this part of his captain, this substance that gives this sacred man his very life?

In the sick bay, McCoy tells Spock he is ready to operate on Sarek. But Spock does not know what to say. He cannot, now. Not with an assassin aboard, a ship in pursuit, the captain out of commission, and the full diplomatic delegation on board. It is a simple matter, or it ought to be. As Spock turns to leave sick bay, he thinks of his father dying. It makes the sadness rise in him like too much water in a cup. But it is logical.

He tries to interrogate the prisoner, he tries to run further scans on the ship. There is no avail. He returns to his quarters for a short meditation, and after he has finished, his mother comes. She does not greet him.

“Spock, you must turn command over to somebody else,” she says, wringing her hands. Spock steels himself. He does not know if he can bear her onslaught of emotion. She takes his lack of emotional response for a lack of emotion, has never seemed to care how much she must hurt him to get him to acknowledge his feeling—he has never understood it. By her own logic, she knows the feeling is there, so why is she so willing to hurt him. He tries to explain this to her, tries to couch his explanation of duty in Vulcan terms, so she can see his consistency, see that this is in accordance with his father’s own wishes, or what they would be if they could ask him—because it is logical. But she insists on saying things like “Nothing is more important than your father’s life.” Things which are not only illogical, but also untrue. Things which, despite this, fall heavily into the already overflowing pool of sadness inside of him.

“Can you imagine what my father would say if I were to agree, if I were to give up command of this vessel, jeopardise hundreds of lives, risk interplanetary war, all for the life of one person?”

“When you were five years old and came home stiff-lipped, anguished, because the other boys tormented you saying that you weren't really Vulcan. I watched you, knowing that inside that the human part of you was crying and I cried, too. There must be some part of me in you, some part that I still can reach. If being Vulcan is more important to you, then you'll stand there speaking rules and regulations from Starfleet and Vulcan philosophy, and let your father die. And I'll hate you for the rest of my life.”

It hurts. He does not doubt her. It was always only one step away. And he never meant to hurt her, never meant—but how could he do otherwise. What would she have him do? Disappoint his father to save his life? Disappoint his father to please _her_? No—that might be how she would frame it, how he might have framed it himself, once. But how could he look himself in the eye if he did this against his own belief? As it is, he does not know how he will look himself in the eye when his father has gone, and his mother... 

“Mother—” he says, turning to her. She has tears in her eyes. 

“Oh, go to him. Now,” she begs. “Please.”

Spock shakes his head. He tries to let her see that it isn’t what he _wants_. “I cannot.”

He sees it coming. The way she draws back, her anger, her scorn rearing inside her, the small, human hand, coming up, hitting him, _hard_ , enough to make his head shake, but he does not flinch. It is not the first time she has hit him. It had never been a frequent occurence, but he had thought those days were over. Had thought that adulthood, a life as a Starfleet officer would free him of this. He sees now that he has been wrong, wrong about so much, wrong in ways he could not have anticipated, ways he had not known existed.

She leaves, her tunic trailing behind her, and he can see that there is none of the attendant regret she’d felt for hitting him the few times it had happened before. She would give him up for this; it has always been clear to him that they care for each other first. And he has not spoken to his father for twenty years, has barely spoken to his mother since he was first posted to the _Enterprise_ years ago. Why then, is he rethinking all of his choices now? Why, then, is he wondering for the first time, if he should have accepted the place at Vulcan Science Academy? He and T’Pring would likely be married now; he would have a comfortable reputation of his own on Vulcan as a scientist of some renown, would not be dependent on his parents, would not be as isolated as he had been as a child by his mixed heritage. And there would not be the matter of Jim. Jim, lying alone in sick bay while his ship is under siege. Spock cannot allow himself this wallowing. He will undertake another ten minutes of mediation, and he will return to the bridge.

***

He is there for only a few hours when Jim comes. There is relief—Jim is all right, perhaps his father will be as well, and he will not have to lose his mother after all—but there is also a kind of fury. His mother will not have to decide whether to forgive him or not; he will never know if she would have loved him anyway. He does not engage it—there is nothing of logic in it—and there is no time.

When he awakens, the ship is out of danger. The mood in the sickbay is light, because the captain is there, but when they are dismissed, when they have gone their separate ways, and he is alone in his cabin, it’s all still there for him, it’s all always there, under the surface, waiting for him if he decides to bring it up for examination or, should he succumb to such, wallowing. Kirk, who the doctor has also temporarily removed from duty, comes to his quarters, and it is a welcome distraction. He stays long enough to tell Spock everything, to play a round of chess, and meet his eyes with that question his own so often seem to hold. But he does not ask, and Spock does not attempt to answer it.

Just a short way from the beamdown point for the delegation, Spock’s door chimes. Knowing that it is not Kirk, Spock holds his breath as he speaks, “Come.”

It is Amanda.

“We’re beaming down soon,” she says.

“Yes.”

“Spock...thank you.”

“Mother, thanks are ill—”

“As you have established,” she says. But, though she has interrupted him, her voice is calm. She looks around the room, slightly nervous, then takes a seat at the table he and Jim use to play chess, their pieces still in the positions they had been in. Jim had won, and his mother has taken Spock’s usual seat. If he joins her at the table, he will have to take Jim’s.

“Spock,” Amanda begins again. “I didn’t come here to talk to you about your father.”

Spock waits, but she only continues to study him, smiling as if the two of them share some knowledge. Spock exhales audibly. He does not wish to acknowledge the infuriating effect it has on him.

“Then why did you?”

“I want to talk to you about your captain.”

Spock, who had been tense, still, now feels his body go completely rigid. His mother’s face has not shifted from that terrible, knowing expression. 

“Spock,” she says, “It’s quite all right, you know. I can see that the feeling between you is mutual.”

“Mother,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. He realizes that he is leaning, no _pressed_ , into the wall behind him, and straightens his spine.

“Have you talked about it? The two of you? Or perhaps…?”

“Mother,” Spock repeats. “The captain is a valued Starfleet officer. Naturally I hold him in high regard. Beyond that, I cannot speak of this.”

“Oh, _Spock_ ,” she says. “If you won’t be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself, with _him_ , before it’s too late.”

“He knows,” Spock says. His mind is elsewhere, on Sarek, and he speaks without thinking; if Amanda has seen, perhaps Sarek has, too, and he would not be so understanding.

“Oh!” Amanda says. “And so…” she is smiling properly now, as if this is something to be celebrated. Spock thinks of Jim, lying beside him on Altair, asleep, breathing, their _skin_ touching, the brightness of his mind against Spock’s, the trust…

“You still don’t understand,” Spock says. “This is nothing to be celebrated.”

Amanda looks confused; she opens her mouth, but seems to be searching for words, and none come. The comm chimes, and Scotty’s voice announces their arrival at the beamdown point, requests that the delegation report to the transporter room.

Amanda stands, fluttering her scarf around her.

“Spock,” she says. “You’re right that I don’t understand. Love is always to be celebrated. If he knows, if you love _each other_ , what can be the problem?”

He cannot answer, so he does not speak. _T’hy’la,_ he thinks. If he utters the word, he’ll see her hand fly to her mouth, the little gasp of surprise. She’ll think i’s to be celebrated, that it’s worth telling Sarek. And Sarek will hold his jaw firm to avoid recoiling, to avoid telling Spock that he’d warned him about humans, about Starfleet barbarism driving him to emotion, driving him back to the outmoded ways of the Vulcan warrior. And he knows, he _knows_. He does not need to be told, yet again, that he is too human, too Vulcan, and yet somehow, not enough of either. This is his shame, this bond, this most beautiful thing his life has given him, and yet this thing that exemplifies, more than anything ever has, that he is a failed experiment, a threat that must be neutralized. And right now, all he can think of is the set of Sarek’s jaw.

“Come see us off,” Amanda says. And because Spock cannot speak, he follows her.


End file.
